Huazhu info leak suspect in custody

A suspect in the case of a massive leak of information on Huazhu Group hotel users has been caught, police said in a statement yesterday.

Huazhu, headquartered in Changning District, is one of the largest multi-brand hotel groups in the world, with over 100 million registered users, according to its official website.

Police started an investigation on August 29 after the company notified them about a possible leak of its user information onto the Internet.

The hotel group said in a statement on Monday that “suspects” had attempted to sell certain data and to blackmail the company.

The suspect in custody is a 30-year-old hacker named Liu. He allegedly tried to sell the data on an overseas website, but the transactions were not realized.

The investigation is still under way.

Police also said they will punish the company for failing to take adequate precautions to ensure the safety of customer data, but did not reveal what kind of action will be taken.