This week, Oracle notified its customers that it had detected malicious code in certain legacy MICROS systems. With data breaches making big headlines over the past several years, the threat of stolen data remains real for individuals and the hotels they share their consumer information with. In fact, 42% of hoteliers identified “creating a secure framework for all guest data” within their hotel PMS data security plan as a top hospitality technology goal, according to a Lodging Technology study conducted by Hospitality Technology.
Today, various options are available to help hotels remain secure in an era where hacks and breaches abound. Many CIOs are putting their faith in the cloud, for good reason. In addition, the cloud service model allows for tighter control over access points between the consumer and service provider and can reduce the concerns associated with on-premise equipment and data vulnerabilities.
SkyTouch Technology’s Hotel OS® (cloud hotel PMS) utilizes the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, where, as the service provider, SkyTouch manages the application, platform, and infrastructure components on behalf of the customer, which includes 24/7/365 monitoring.
Hoteliers can also take measures to help protect their guests, and their cloud hotel PMS data, by assessing and addressing areas that are key to long term the success of the hotel. For example, even with a best cloud-based hotel PMS in place, hotels of all sizes must recognize that another key to security and data protection lies in great training. Training staff properly on data security and data privacy policies and procedures can help keep hotels out of the headlines. However, it’s critical that employees at every level handling data receive this training — just think about all of the online touch points as customer information traverses the entire network! Hotels that regularly train and require their employees to comply with certain administrative, physical, and technical controls can greatly minimize their risks by helping to create a culture of data privacy and data protection at their hotel.
While hotels can’t necessarily escape data security threats in today’s fast-moving, digitally charged environment, there are key steps hotel owners can take to help minimize the risks for their business and their hotel guests. With large amounts of data and enterprise workloads moving to the cloud, security and data privacy will remain at the forefront of everyone’s minds. We anticipate the industry will see a major shift toward building security that can help generate the movement toward cloud-based PMS systems.
