5.25 million passports affected in Marriott cyberattack

Marriott International says that the total number of guests affected by a massive hacking of a reservations database that the company disclosed late last year is smaller than the 500 million it originally reported.

The bad news is that the company confirmed that more than five million unencrypted passport numbers were stolen, on top of the more than 20 million encrypted passport numbers.

That might be a problem, given passport numbers can be used for identity theft and to commit fraud, but is the sort of data that remains highly valuable for spy agencies that can use the information to track down where government officials, diplomats and adversaries have stayed — giving insight into what would ordinarily be clandestine activities.

The company also now believes the hackers stole around 8.6 million encrypted payment card details, some 354,000 of which are expired. Marriott said there's a chance that "a small number (fewer than 2,000)" of unencrypted payment card numbers were also exposed, but it's still investigating.

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