U.S. hotel customers hit by new data breach

Another case of hacking has arisen in a U.S. business this time through White Lodging, a company that runs Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton and Westin hotel franchises.

According to cyber-security expert Brian Krebs, thousands of hotel guests may have had credit and debit card data stolen in 2013.

White Lodging, based in Merrillville, Indiana, issued a statement Sunday saying an investigation is in progress.

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The data breach was uncovered when banks began noticing a pattern seeing apattern of fraud on hundreds of cards that were previously used at Marriott hotels from end of March to December 2013, Krebs wrote.

Marriott has issued a statement saying it is working closely with White Lodging and the banks to investigate.

As this impacts customers of Marriott hotels we want to provide assurance that Marriott has a long-standing commitment to protect the privacy of the personal information that our guests entrust to us, and wewill continue to monitor the situation closely, Marriott said in its statement.

There is increased scrutiny on how data from credit and debit cards is being used since retailer Target suffered a breach before Christmas that could affect up to 70 million shoppers, including some in Canada.

This weekend, a hacker group exposed flaws in Bell Canadas security systems, posting data from thousands of small business customers.

A U.S. Senate hearing on safeguarding customers personal data is to begin this afternoon in Washington, D.C., with representatives of the banks and U.S. secret service taking part.

"We are committed to working to find not only the perpetrators of these sorts of data breaches, but also any individuals and groups who exploit that data via credit card fraud," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week.

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