Marriott International has revealed hackers accessed up to 500 million customer records in its Starwood Hotels reservation system in an attack that began four years ago, exposing data including passport numbers and payment cards.
Rick Hampton, the wireless communications manager for Boston-based <a href="http://www.partners.org/">Partners Healthcare</a>, has seen the dialogue among network professionals heating up in the wake of the FCC's sternly-worded enforcement warning about illegal Wi-Fi blocking and says it's no wonder the commission is fired up.
First the FCC slapped Marriott International with a $600K fine for Wi-Fi blocking and issued a follow-up enforcement warning to the masses. Now the FTC has issued a hotel Wi-Fi warning of its own.
The FCC has been very clear that it didn't approve of a Marriott International hotel's blocking of convention center attendees' Wi-Fi hotspots: It <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691674/wifi/marriott-must-pay-600000-for-blocking-personal-wifi-hotspots.html">fined the hospitality company $600,000 last fall</a> and <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2876239/wi-fi/fcc-calls-blocking-of-personal-wi-fi-hotspots-disturbing-trend.html">issued a stern warning on Jan. 27</a> that such wireless network interference by others will not be tolerated either.
The FCC's sternly worded warning about illegal Wi-Fi blocking earlier this week got through to at least one organization: Marriott International's Global CIO issued a statement Friday that the hospitality outfit is withdrawing efforts to gain clarification from the commission on what methods <em>can</em> be used to protect corporate Wi-Fi networks.
The <a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0127/DA-15-113A1.pdf">FCC on Tuesday warned</a> that it will no longer tolerate hotels, convention centers or others intentionally interfering with personal Wi-Fi hotspots.
Hotel operator Marriott International has backed off its request to block some outside Wi-Fi hotspots inside its facilities, saying the company has responded to customer feedback.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will soon decide whether to lay down rules regarding hotels' ability to block personal Wi-Fi hotspots inside their buildings, a practice that recently earned Marriott International a US $600,000 fine.
Here's some payback for everyone who has felt gouged by hotel charges for Wi-Fi service: Marriott International has to pay US$600,000 following a probe into whether it intentionally blocked personal Wi-Fi hotspots in order to force customers to use its own very pricey service.
A Hungarian citizen has pleaded guilty to stealing confidential information from the computers of Marriott International, and threatening to reveal the information if the hotel chain did not offer him a job maintaining the company's computers, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
The Wild West era of <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9191238/IT_shifts_to_the_cloud_anecdote_by_anecdote">cloud computing</a> is ending. So says cloud computing's new sheriff, a user group called the <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9194298/New_user_group_aims_to_take_on_the_super_vendors">Open Data Center Alliance</a> .