The company that owns the historic La Fonda on the Plaza hotel in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico, said its computer database may have been breached last month, though it stopped short of stating that customer data was involved.
The Business Journals of Albuquerque reported that Rik Blyth, La Fonda’s vice president and general manager, said the company reported the breach to the FBI and are notifying state regulators and credit reporting agencies.
The publication also reported:
The disclosure about the cybersecurity incident came about three hours after Albuquerque Business First contacted Blyth and the hotel’s director of marketing about a claim made by users of a particular kind of ransomware. Those users stated they had data from “lafondasantafe.com.” That URL matches the website for La Fonda on the Plaza.
The claim, made by users of LockBit 3.0, shows it was posted sometime on or around Tuesday. It gives a deadline of Sept. 18 before the site will publish the available data. The claim contains screenshots of what appear to be file directories containing financial reports and other documents. One screenshot shows a directory containing more than 95,000 files. Another shows an image of a passport issued in the name of a La Fonda Holdings LLC executive.
The company said in the news release that it learned of the unauthorized third-party access to computer systems on Aug. 18. The access disrupted certain servers and computers, the news release said. The hotel retained outside information technology personnel and forensic experts to investigate the incident and restore “secure operations.”
“Within two days, primary computer systems and data were restored using available backups, and normal business operations resumed,” the news release said.
Anyone who’s stayed or spent money at La Fonda in recent weeks had better monitor their credit cards and banking accounts carefully.
La Fonda marked its official centennial in January, though historic records indicate a lodging establishment was there in 1607, on the site in 1607, bolstering its claim as “the oldest hotel corner in America.”
La Fonda sits less than a block from the 1926-1937 alignment of Route 66 that goes into downtown Santa Fe.
(Courtesy image of La Fonda at the Santa Fe Trail in Santa Fe, New Mexico)