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Marriott's Breach Response Is So Bad, Security Experts Are Filling In the Gaps (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Last Friday, Marriott sent out millions of emails warning of a massive data breach -- some 500 million guest reservations had been stolen from its Starwood database. One problem: the email sender's domain didn't look like it came from Marriott at all. Marriott sent its notification email from "email-marriott.com," which is registered to a third party firm, CSC, on behalf of the hotel chain giant. But there was little else to suggest the email was at all legitimate -- the domain doesn't load or have an identifying HTTPS certificate. In fact, there's no easy way to check that the domain is real, except a buried note on Marriott's data breach notification site that confirms the domain as legitimate. But what makes matters worse is that the email is easily spoofable.
Many others have sounded the alarm on Marriott's lackluster data breach response. Security expert Troy Hunt, who founded data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, posted a long tweet thread on the hotel chain giant's use of the problematic domain. As it happens, the domain dates back at least to the start of this year when Marriott used the domain to ask its users to update their passwords. Williams isn't the only one who's resorted to defending Marriott customers from cybercriminals. Nick Carr, who works at security giant FireEye, registered the similarly named "email-mariott.com" on the day of the Marriott breach. "Please watch where you click," he wrote on the site. "Hopefully this is one less site used to confuse victims." Had Marriott just sent the email from its own domain, it wouldn't be an issue.
Many others have sounded the alarm on Marriott's lackluster data breach response. Security expert Troy Hunt, who founded data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, posted a long tweet thread on the hotel chain giant's use of the problematic domain. As it happens, the domain dates back at least to the start of this year when Marriott used the domain to ask its users to update their passwords. Williams isn't the only one who's resorted to defending Marriott customers from cybercriminals. Nick Carr, who works at security giant FireEye, registered the similarly named "email-mariott.com" on the day of the Marriott breach. "Please watch where you click," he wrote on the site. "Hopefully this is one less site used to confuse victims." Had Marriott just sent the email from its own domain, it wouldn't be an issue.
No IT system will ever be strong enough to defend against a user clicking on a link to go to a webpage and voluntarily entering their credit card info.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Just because an advanced user has difficulty vetting the domain doesn't mean there's something wrong with it.
There's no "official" universally accepted criteria for authenticating a domain belongs to the company whose name is claimed on the domain, and even the use of a basic TLS certificate is not foolproof; However, CSC Being a corporate-only registrar that is used by most of the largest internet brands in the US has a very HIGH PRICE to engage their services, let alone register a domain ----- unless a state actor is involved or an additional major breach of CSC themself; the probability of a phishing domain getting registered through CSC AND also with DNS hosted by CSC seems extremely remote --- particularly when you look at the second positive indicator.
Registration is mature --- the domain email-marriott.com has been registered for 4 years created in August 2014. That would mean its been dormant or used for purposes not detected as phishing for an extremely long term: generally when a domain name is used for phishing abuse takedown procedures get initiated immediately, and most often the domain is shutdown by its registrar within days.
COULD the breach notification be faked? Yes, In theory. So just be cautious if you receive an e-mail to not provide personal information after clicking on a link in the message. Close the browser window and visit the company's website. Open a ticket with support if the breach notice implies you need to do something, and you can't find a way to do it on their website --- ultimately a company's call-in support should be able to confirm the message is real or not and assist.