Marriott says 5.2 million guests exposed in new data breach

(Reuters) – Marriott International Inc said on Tuesday information of about 5.2 million hotel guests was breached, the second such incident for the hotel operator in less than two years.

It said the breached information, including contact details, loyalty account information and additional personal details such as gender and birthdays, may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property.

The company also said information such as account passwords, payment card information and passport information were not a part of the breach.

Marriott said it was currently investigating the incident, which it believed started in mid-January and was identified around February end.

In November 2018, Marriott said its Starwood guest reservation database was breached, potentially exposing information on about 500 million guests.

(This story corrects typo in first paragraph.)

(Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)