Starwood Hotels and Resorts has become the latest company to be hacked. Customer’s payment information has been affected including cardholder names, payment card number, security codes and expiration dates.

The malware was discovered as affecting a total of 54 hotels and resorts across the Americas, and for periods ranging from one day to several months in 2014 and 2015.

It includes several brands including Sheraton, St Regis, W Hotels and Westin Hotels, in locations from Seattle and Los Angeles to Florida and New York.

The first dates are in November 2014, and the last dates are October 2015.

Starwood says that “Promptly after discovering the issue [it] engaged third-party forensic experts to conduct an extensive investigation.” and as a result of this investigation, it “discovered that the point of sale systems at certain Starwood hotels were infected with malware, enabling unauthorized parties to access payment card data of some of our customers.”

Starwood says “… the malware was designed to collect certain payment card information, including cardholder name, payment card number, security code and expiration date. There is no evidence that other customer information, such as contact information, Social Security numbers or PINs, were affected by this issue.”

The company said it is alerting affected customers about the incident “…so they can take steps to help protect their information”.

It has set up a helpline number – 1-855-270-9179 (U.S. and Canada) or 1-512-201-2201 (International), Monday through Saturday, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm CST.

The company says that “the malware no longer presents a threat to customers using payment cards at our hotels.”

Source: http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/54-starwood-hotels-affected-by-malware