Hackers Breach Trump Hotels Again for the Second Time in Past Year

Donald Trump has certainly garnered attention from all around the world, and as a presidential candidate, his properties have become targets from the opposing. During the past year, Trump Hotels were the brunt of a security breach that led to fraudulent transactions that led back to people who stayed at Trump properties in the past. Now, marking the second time a breach has taken place, hackers have breached credit card data at Trump International Hotel New York, Trump Hotel Waikiki in Honolulu, HI, and Trump International Hotel & Tower in Toronto.

Security researcher, Brian Krebs, confirmed through several channels that the Trump Hotel Collection was under its second attack in what appears to be a card breach. In uncovering the information of Trump properties being breached, they were confirmed as being the same hotels that were part of a card breach in July of 2015.

In the past, there have been many other card breaches that sought out the data belonging to hotel guests at chains such as Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels, and Starwood Hotels. Data breaches are more common than most think. In fact, the majority of recent data breaches have been consumer 'hospitality' entities where attackers make off with credit card data.

The lucrative industry in hospitality organizations makes for ideal targets for hackers and cybercrooks. Even better, attacks seek out locations where there is a high volume of consumer transactions to further mask suspicious activity that may eventually be detected after the fact of a data breach. Such locations of high volume chains are in the major cities, making large hotel chains like Trump's Hotel properties prime targets for data breaches.

As far as how the attackers were able to penetrate Trump Hotels again in the recent data breach, experts are clear that the proper protection and implementation of modernized security Web gateways and endpoint security measures were not put in place. Instead of being proactive about cyberattacks, many infrastructures are reactive by having detection algorithms running instead of protection agents.

In such a fast-paced world where information and data travels at the speed of light, simply detecting a data breach isn't enough when it comes to keeping consumer card data secure. The negative repercussions from data exploitation and breaches have a long lasting effect on most business, especially ones that service milions of consumers around the world. Spending more on the front end to put in proper security protection measures is money well spent up front, versus a backlash from adversely affected consumers, who you may end up spending more money to recoup the initial losses from an extensive data breach.