Fewer Marriott guest records than previously feared were compromised in a massive data breach, but the largest hotel chain in the world confirmed Friday that approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers were accessed.
The compromise of those passport numbers has raised alarms among security experts because of their value to state intelligence agencies.
The FBI is leading the investigation of the data theft and investigators suspect the hackers were working on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the rough equivalent of the CIA.
The hackers accessed about 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers. There is no evidence that they were able to use the master encryption key required to gain access to that data.
Unencrypted passport numbers are valuable to state intelligence agencies because they can be used to compile detailed dossiers on people and their international movements.
Fed chief won’t quit if Trumps asks him
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that he will not resign if asked to do so by President Donald Trump, and that he is prepared to be patient in deciding when to raise interest rates again.
Both of those messages cheered stock market investors who had been worried about Trump’s repeated attacks on his hand-picked choice to lead the nation’s central bank and also the Fed’s seemingly inexorable march to higher rates.
“There is no pre-set path for policy,” Powell said during an appearance at a conference of economists in Atlanta. “With the muted inflation readings we have seen coming in, we will be patient as we watch to see how the economy evolves.”
Private economists viewed Powell’s comments as a strong signal that the Fed, which in December had projected another two rate hikes in 2019, may end up deciding to pause hikes for several months.
Alabama pension buys newspapers
Alabama’s employee pension fund, with nearly 360,000 members and some $44 billion in managed assets, has become sole owner of one of the largest chains of local U.S. newspapers.
Retirement Systems of Alabama said it has bought all of CHNI LLC, the newspaper group that owns 68 daily newspapers and more than 40 non-dailies plus websites in 22 states. CHNI owns 13 daily and weekly newspapers in Georgia, including The Daily Citizen of Dalton, Georgia and its sister papers – Dalton Magazine and El Informador.
The Montgomery, Alabama-based newspaper group is being spun off Raycom Media Inc., which is being purchased by the Atlanta-based Gray Television Inc. Raycom was owned by the retirement system.
CNHI, which began as a small newspaper group in 1997 and previously operated with the state retirement system as its creditor, will gain stability through the acquisition, chief executive Donna Barrett said in the statement.
“We are very excited about working with RSA again because of its dedication to the crucial role of newspapers in keeping the public informed on what is happening in their communities and beyond,” she said.
Financial details weren’t announced.
Weather Channel sued over privacy
The operator of The Weather Channel mobile app tracks the whereabouts of users and sells their data to third parties, Los Angeles prosecutors said as they sued to stop the practice.
The company misled users of the popular app to think their location data would only be used for personalized forecasts and alerts but instead covertly mined the information for corporate profit, City Attorney Michael Feuer said Friday.
The Weather Channel app intentionally obscured its motives in a lengthy privacy policy that got four-fifths of users to agree to share geolocation data, Feuer said.
A spokesman for IBM Corp., which owns the app, said it has always been clear about the use of location data collected from users and will vigorously defend its “fully appropriate” disclosures.
Feuer said operators of the app, TWC Product and Technology LLC, sold data to at least a dozen websites for targeted ads and to hedge funds that used the information to analyze consumer behavior.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the company from the practice it deems “unfair and fraudulent” and seeks penalties of up to $2,500 for each violation.