INDONESIA: High-End Mandarin Oriental Hotels Confirm Data Breach

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group – operators of more than two dozen upscale hotels from Atlanta to Jakarta – confirmed late Wednesday that its properties are the latest victims of a credit card breach.

Krebs on Security reports representatives for the upscale hotel chain confirmed the breach but didn’t say how many of its hotels or customers were affected by the hack.

“We can confirm that Mandarin Oriental has been alerted to a potential credit card breach and is currently conducting a thorough investigation to identify and resolve the issue,” the company said in a statement. “Unfortunately incidents of this nature are increasingly becoming an industry-wide concern. The Group takes the protection of customer information very seriously and is coordinating with credit card agencies and the necessary forensic specialists to ensure our guests are protected.”

Rumors of a breach began swirling when financial industry sources divulged a pattern of fraudulent charges on customer cards that had all recently been used at the upscale hotel chain.

Krebs reports that banking industry sources say the breach most likely began just before the holidays in 2014 and impacted most of Mandarin’s hotels in the U.S. including those in Boston, Florida, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Sources say it’s possible the hack originated from compromised payment terminals at restaurants and other businesses operating inside the hotels rather than the hotel front desk.