Online travel agency and metasearch engine Booking.com has notified several customers that it has suffered a data breach and that their private data may have been exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some users in South Africa were also affected. \u201cAt Booking.com, we\u2019re dedicated to the security and data protection of our guests,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn that spirit, we\u2019re writing to inform you that unauthorised third parties may have accessed certain booking information associated with your reservation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company said it recently noticed suspicious activity affecting a number of reservations and immediately took action to contain the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBased on the findings of our investigation to date, accessed information could include booking details, names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, and anything that you may have shared with the property.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booking.com said it had changed reservation PINs to keep people\u2019s bookings secure. It also advised customers to take extra precautions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This included general advice like installing antivirus software and being extra wary of phishing and spearphishing attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Founded in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the world\u2019s top digital travel companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booking.com describes itself as a technology company that takes the friction out of travel, connecting millions of travellers to memorable experiences and a variety of transportation options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to guesthouses and hotels, it also allows private individuals to list their homes or extra apartments on the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBooking.com enables properties around the world to reach a global audience and grow their businesses,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The platform is available in 43 languages and offers more than 28 million accommodation listings, including over 6.6 million homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booking.com did not state how many people or listings were affected by the breach, or otherwise indicate the scale of the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MyBroadband asked Booking.com how many South African users were affected and whether it would notify the Information Regulator about the breach. It declined to answer our questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, it reiterated the information in the notice it sent to guests about changing their booking PINs. “Upon discovering the suspicious activity, we took action to contain the issue,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Information Regulator receives 284 breach notifications every month. Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks has said that an organisation in South Africa is breached by a threat actor every 3 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa is seeing an unprecedented rise in data breaches, with incidents increasing by 60% in the first half of 2025 alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March 2026, three South African organisations were breached by a new cyber extortion group calling itself XP95. Data from job seekers and students were stolen in the three incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Student bursary provider the Gauteng City Region Academy (GCRA) and Statistics South Africa<\/a> were the latest victims, following a successful attack on the Gauteng Provincial Government<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Online travel agency and metasearch engine Booking .com has notified several customers, including South African users, that it suffered a data breach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":640196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49895],"class_list":["post-640195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-booking-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640195"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640205,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640195\/revisions\/640205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}