As the COVID-19 vaccination process started, hotels all around the globe are beginning to look ahead what a post-pandemic future will bring. To bounce back they’ll not only have to show guests they’re safe from the coronavirus — hotels must also convince guests their personal information is secured. Lately, many cyber attacks disabled hotels around the Europe – hotels in Italy – Valtellina region, UK – Edinburgh and the list goes on and on.
Hotels and IT systems
To make the operations more efficient, improve service and remain competitive, many hotels use IT systems to handle number of tasks daily. Those might include payment transactions, accounting, reservation systems and key-card access to rooms. Computers are also utilized to automate many functions from turning on and off lights to controlling temperatures and so on.
Hotels and cybercrimes
The threat of cybercrime and data breaches have never been so prominent. By 2021, damages related to cybercrime is set to hit $6 trillion according to Cybersecurity Ventures.
Put plainly, the bigger the organisation, the more of a target it becomes for hackers due to the volume of information held. And that’s why cybersecurity is so important; protecting your customers’ data should be a primary concern.
According to zdnet.com, hotels, restaurant chains, and related tourism services have been subject to a range of techniques when it comes to cybercrime; due to the compromise of Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals to harvest guest data, phishing emails sent to staff which are designed to give attackers access to internal systems, and Man-in-The-Middle (MiTM) attacks through hotel public W-Fi hotspots being only some of the potential attack vectors.
In the hospitality industry, hotel cybersecurity is a matter that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
