The Holiday Season is Putting Hotels at Risk - Episode 195

The CU Guys dive into the heightened risks hotels face during the holiday season. They discuss the importance of maintaining cybersecurity vigilance amidst increased traffic and seasonal hiring. The conversation covers best practices for background checks, training, and physical security, emphasizing the need for diligence to prevent data breaches. Tune in to learn how to protect your organization during the busiest time of the year.

Episode Transcript:

Now, you know, one thing I wanted to talk about is our listeners, and we'd love to hear from them. And what I mean by that is we'd love to know, if you're listening to this, we'd love to know your feedback and input on topics that you'd like to hear about or folks that you'd think we'd enjoy having on the show, and we'd love it if you would send those inquiries to complianceunfiltered@total compliancetracking.com.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, even if they've got, hey, I heard this like really, really, really funky story or whatever, you know, and anything, anything, anything that folks want to hear about, they'd be, it'd be great to kind of hear what their interests are and, and we'll be happy to, we'll be happy to oblige.

No doubt. Now, speaking of the holiday season, Adam, we're going to jump right in because the holiday season is putting hotels at risk.

Tell us more, Adam. Why does this time of year heighten the risk for hotels?

I mean, we're right in the, you know, in the thick of the holiday season, you know, between Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year and all that fun stuff. So, you know, we've got, it's an interesting time when, you know, there's a lot of hotels that are, you know, that have a lot more traffic than they would normally. And, you know, staff are, you know, running all over the place trying to make sure they're taking care of guest needs, you know, etc.

But, you know, keep in mind that that means it's also peak season for, you know, cyber attackers and bad actors to be able to take advantage, you know, of it. I mean, they, you know, they know that now is the best time to, you know, gain access to the sensitive data because everybody's, you know, run around, distracted and all that fun stuff. So, you know, it's not if you're going to suffer an attack. It's really about more about when and how. So, you know, you don't want, as an operator of one of these types of establishments, you definitely don't want to fall victim to it and find out in the wrong way that you were subject to some type of an attack. So, it's better to be safe than sorry.

That's a good shout. Now, as you're dealing with kind of an influx of new folks in an organization, right? So like seasonal hiring, how does seasonal hiring impact background checks?

Well, I mean, the biggest thing is, is that, um, is for the organizations don't, don't cut corners, you know, if you've got to bring in some additional staff or, you know, for seasonal hiring, et cetera, that there's, there's certainly the possibility. Um, although I, um, you know, we'll call you, it'd be pretty ballsy to pretty ballsy to go give this one a whirl, but, you know, if you're not going to have any idea, if you don't run your background checks, so, um, could be bad actors come, you know, that are, that are coming through, uh, you know, with the seasonal hiring push, um, you know, it, uh, it may very well be, it's someone that just has a, uh, a pass that doesn't line up with the rules, regulation guidelines for your organization, but you're not going to have any idea if you're not running the, running the background checks.

Um, even though you have to fill up staffing needs quickly, you know, et cetera, you know, it's not, you don't want to do it at the cost of possibly running into an issue, you know, make sure that you're maintaining your due diligence, forming thorough background checks on everybody that, you know, is going to, uh, is going to run into the hiring line.