A hacker is selling the personal details of over 130 million hotel guests for 8 Bitcoin ($56,000) on a Chinese Dark Web forum.

The breach was reported today by Chinese media after several cyber-security firms spotted the forum ad [1, 2, 3, 4].

The seller said he obtained the data from Huazhu Hotels Group Ltd (Huazhu from hereafter), one of China’s largest hotel chains, which operates 13 hotel brands across 5,162 hotels in 1,119 Chinese cities.

Forum ad claims to sell

According to a description the hacker posted online, the stolen data is 141.5GB in size, contains 240 million records, with information on roughly 130 million hotel guests that stayed at one of Huazhu hotels.

Dark Web ad peddling the data

The following user data is believed to be sold online: official website registration information (ID card number, mobile phone number, email address, login password); check-in registration information (customer name, ID card number, home address, birthday), and booking information (name, card number, mobile phone number, check-in time, departure time, hotel ID number, room number).

The data appears to be from customers who stayed at any of Huazhu’s hotel brands —Hanting Hotel, Grand Mercure, Joye, Manxin, Novotel, Mercure, CitiGo, Orange, All Season, Starway, Ibis, Elan, Haiyou.

A Huazhu spokesperson did not answer a request for comment from Bleeping Computer, but the hotel chain published a statement on Chinese social network Weibo. A spokesperson said the company is still investigating the breach and that authorities have been notified.

Breach traced to GitHub snafu

Chinese cyber-security firm Zibao told a local news outlet that they’ve verified the data and said to be authentic.

A Zibao spokesperson, along with other security researchers, said they believe the breach to have happened earlier this month.

They said the cause of the breach appears to be a mistake on the part of the Huazhu’s development team, who seem to have uploaded copies of their database on a GitHub account.

 

Source:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/data-of-130-million-chinese-hotel-chain-guests-sold-on-dark-web-forum/?mid=1#cid=6266128