Best Western: 10 customers affected by data breach, not 8 million

Yesterday I blogged about the confusion surrounding the Best Western data security breach.

Newspapers had claimed that up to eight million hotel visitors might have had their personal information put in peril. The Best Western hotel group, however, had angrily debunked the claims – saying that reporters had not checked their facts.

Today, Best Western has released another statement, claiming that only one hotel was affected by the hack and the reporter had over-estimated the number of victims by some.. err.. 7,999,990:

“We can confirm that on August 21, 2008, three separate attempts were made via a single log-on ID to access the same data…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.