March 4, 2010
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News: Hotels Hospitable for Credit Card Cybercrime
It really shouldn't come as a big surprise. After all, credit cards have long been the standard exchange medium for the hotel business. Hotels and credit cards have always been a perfect match. What many people don't consider though, is that most hotels are thinly staffed at night. Why is that important for credit card considerations? This is because all the credit card batch activities take place around midnight.
Called "Night Auditors", those who administrate the volume of the day's transactions don't usually wear this hat full-time. It's rarely, if ever, a full-time position. "Night Auditors" are generally drawn from personnel who happen to be available during the late hours of the night. As I said in the last paragraph, most hotels are thinly staffed compared to the amount of territory they must be responsible for. So, a night auditor could be anyone from a dishwasher to a night watchman. Of course, since credit cards are the medium by which the hotel gets its daily bread, hotels are mindful that those who handle credit cards must be honest and responsible.
Honest and responsible, however, does not infer that these people are technically literate nor does it infer that they understand security. They are usually thrust in these positions by necessity because the person who was doing the job either quit or was fired. And so, on it goes. In the years I've spent working with these people, I don't remember working with any who had a level of confidence. Not that they weren't confident people. Almost al were confident in other areas such as management. Just not with credit card networking. So, it should come as little surprise that these enterprises make a prime target for cybercriminals. According to Trustwave SpiderLabs, data security breach investigators who track patterns and techniques, hotels have hit the top of the list ("hit-list", that is).
For a closer look into the hotel credit card cybercrime situation, please continue into the series entitled: "Hotels Hospitable for Cybercrime".