Germany’s H-Hotels suffered a Play ransomware attack

One of Germany’s leading hotel chains, H-Hotels, allegedly suffered a cyberattack from the Play ransomware group that disrupted their communication capabilities.

H-Hotels is a hospitality company with approximately 60 hotels in nearly 50 locations across European countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. This hotel chain has over 2,500 workers and is the most significant hospitality business in the DACH region.

 

H-Hotels confirmed that a cyberattack had compromised their business.

 

Based on reports, H-Hotels announced that they discovered a cyberattack on their system earlier this week, on December 11th.

According to investigations, the attackers have breached the company’s extensive technical and organisational IT protection systems in a professionally executed attack. The company’s security team immediately shut down and disconnected their IT systems to avoid the further spread of the attack.

Fortunately, the cyberattack did not affect any guests’ bookings. However, the hotel chain confirmed that their employees could still not use emails. The management suggests the clients contact their company through phone calls if needed.

The firm has notified the German law enforcement agencies regarding the incident to request coordination with their IT forensics team to restore their systems as soon as possible. H-Hotels also assured everyone that they would put more emphasis towards their IT protection systems to mitigate any potential cyberattacks in the future.

The Play ransomware group claimed they were the culprits behind the attack against H-Hotel. They have listed the company on their Tor site today, saying they had stolen an undisclosed database during their breach.

The ransomware group revealed they had stolen personal and private information such as IDs, documents, passports, and more. However, the ransomware operators have yet to release proof supporting their claims.

Additionally, H-Hotels said that they had not seen any evidence of data exfiltration in their recent investigation, and there has been no update on the incident.

Lastly, hotel guests should be wary of a potential phishing campaign and other tracking possibilities since the privacy breach could have given the hackers information regarding financial data, future destinations, and more.