• About
  • Advertise
  • Careers
  • Contact
Monday, February 6, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
Cyber360 News
  • Home
  • Security
  • Data Breach
  • Cyber Attacks
  • Cyber Security
  • Cyber Crime
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Security
  • Data Breach
  • Cyber Attacks
  • Cyber Security
  • Cyber Crime
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Cyber360 News
No Result
View All Result
Home Data Breach

Leaky Gekko Group database exposes info on hotel brands, travelers

by Cyber360 News
November 22, 2019
in Data Breach
0
Leaky Gekko Group database exposes info on hotel brands, travelers
0
SHARES
2
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

European hotel booking platform provider Gekko Group mistakenly stored over 1 terabyte of information on a publicly configured server, exposing troves of data related to its hotel B2B clients, as well as travel agents and their customers.

The majority of the exposed data was collected by Gekko brands Teldar Travel, which provides a booking system for travel agents, and Infinite Hotel, a distribution specialist that provides an inventory of hotels to B2B clients. But other data was originally collected by Gekko’s third-party partners and external reservations platforms, including Booking.com, Hotelbeds.com, Occius, Infra, Smile, Mondial Assistance and Selectour.com

Exposed data included hotel and transportation booking details, personally identifiable information, invoices with credit card details, and plain-text login credentials used by Gekko’s clients. Booking info and PII typically consisted of names, email addresses, home addresses, dates of travel, destination hotels and reservation details such as number of guests, room types and price of stays. Outside of room bookings, the database also stored details on theme park and tour excursion tickets, airport transfers, and Eurostar train tickets. The credit card information found on the invoices pertained to a mix of both travel agents and their clients.

Researchers with vpnMentor found the Elasticsearch database while performing an internet mapping project, and ultimately traced the contents to Gekko and its parent accompany AccorHotels, which are both based in France. According to a company blog post, the vpnMentor team, led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, discovered the leak on Nov. 7 and twice reached out to Gekko and AccorHotels over the course of the week. By Nov. 13, AccorHotels reportedly had secured the server.

According to vpnMentor, the leaky server could have serious consequences if any malicious individuals accessed any of the data. Adversaries could use the exposed credentials to take over the accounts of Gekko’s B2B clients, or leverage information on travelers to devise realistic email phishing schemes.

“This breach represents a serious lapse in data security by Gekko Group and its subsidiaries, compromising the privacy of their customers, clients, AccorHotels, and the businesses themselves,” said the vpnMenton blog post. “For two companies of their respective sizes and market shares, Gekko Group and AccorHotels would be expected to have more robust data security. By exposing such a huge amount of sensitive data, they will likely face serious questions over how this happened, and their wider data security policies for all brands they own.”

The advent of convenient cloud-based storage continues to pose a security challenge to companies that overlook server misconfigurations.

“Enterprise infrastructures are filled with tens of thousands of cloud resources that create opportunities for leakage. In this case, it’s likely that an identity changed the privacy configurations for a legitimate reason for a single ElasticSearch server, exposing more than a terabyte of sensitive data,” said Balaji Parimi, CEO of CloudKnox Security, in emailed comments. “Because companies struggle so badly with visibility into complex multi-cloud environments, finding these vulnerabilities can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. At this scale, a prevention-first approach is critical. It all starts with properly authorizing which identities… can carry out sensitive operations like making a resource public, and providing them with proper training.”

“Cloud computing and storage has made it incredibly easy for organizations to store vast amounts of data and have it available across different geographies and devices,” said Javvad Malik, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4. “However, with this convenience also comes the challenge that any minor misconfiguration can have massive implications, such as the making of a private database publicly accessible. In this incident though, there is a deeper issue. Not only was there a misconfiguration, but the database was holding credit card numbers and unencrypted passwords, which [flies] in the face of regulations and all good security practices. It illustrates that security isn’t something that can be procured via a technology and forgotten about. Rather, good security needs to be embedded as a part of organizational culture so that across the business, everyone not only sees the value of security, but actively seeks to implement it and avoid malpractice such as storing excessive amounts of data in unsecured environments.”

SC Media has reached out to AccorHotels for comment.

Cyber360 News

Cyber360 News

Next Post
Data-Enriched Profiles on 1.2B People Exposed in Gigantic Leak

Data-Enriched Profiles on 1.2B People Exposed in Gigantic Leak

Recent Posts

Twitch’s Entire Critical Data Leaked, Includes Streamer Earnings, Source Code

Twitch’s Entire Critical Data Leaked, Includes Streamer Earnings, Source Code

October 6, 2021
Former U.S. Security Firm Helped The UAE Carry Out “Karma” iMessage Hack: MIT Tech Review

Former U.S. Security Firm Helped The UAE Carry Out “Karma” iMessage Hack: MIT Tech Review

October 1, 2021
Facing “This App Has Been Blocked For Your Protection” Issue? Here’s How You Can Fix It

Facing “This App Has Been Blocked For Your Protection” Issue? Here’s How You Can Fix It

October 1, 2021

Whats New in Kali Linux?

September 14, 2021

Kali Linux 2019.3 Release (CloudFlare, Kali-status, metapackages, Helper-Scripts & LXD)

September 14, 2021

Kali Linux 2021.3 Release (OpenSSL, Kali-Tools, Kali Live VM Support, Kali NetHunter Smartwatch)

September 14, 2021

Kali Linux 2018.4 Release

September 14, 2021

Kali Linux 1.0.5 and Software Defined Radio

September 14, 2021

Kali Tools Website Launched, 1.0.9 Release

September 14, 2021

Kali Linux Dojo at Black Hat Vegas 2016

September 14, 2021

Category

Site Links

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

About Us

We bring you the best Premium WordPress Themes that perfect for news, magazine, personal blog, etc. Check our landing page for details.

© 2019 Cyber360 News - Powered by WebSensePro

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Security
  • Data Breach
  • Cyber Attacks
  • Cyber Security
  • Cyber Crime
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Cyber360 News - Powered by WebSensePro

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In