TFE hotels group suffers severe operational disruption following a cyber attack

Australia’s TFE Hotels group said it is recovering from a significant data security incident that affected several systems and disrupted daily operations.

 

Headquartered in Sydney, TFE Hotels owns more than 70 hotels, resorts, apartments and dining experiences across Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Formed through a joint venture between TOGA Group and Far East Hospitality, the group owns Adina Apartment Hotels, Vibe Hotels, Travelodge Hotels, Rendezvous Hotels and Oasia brand hotels.

 

In a data security incident notice published on its website, the hotel chain said that it recently became aware of a data security incident affecting its internal network. The hotel immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident.

 

The hotel’s IT security team also took precautionary measures to contain the incident and notified relevant law enforcement authorities about the same.

 

“We are currently investigating a cyber incident impacting our networks. In the interim, our hotel teams will be manually assisting guests, our phone lines have been diverted to a central customer service team, and we are working to restore access to our back-end systems, including new booking information. We are also currently working with the team to restore full access to our emails,” the hotel group said.

 

In an update to its initial notification, TFE said it “restored systems in many of our hotels” and is able to serve its guests now. “As an interim measure, some hotel teams are manually assisting guests, and our phone lines have been diverted to a central customer service team. We are working to restore access to all our back-end systems. As a result, some of our systems and interactions may be slower as we restore operations,” reads the update.

 

TFE added that its investigation and recovery process still continues and updates will be shared as and when available.

 

At the time of publishing, no known hacker group has claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on TFE Hotels. The company also did not share details on who was behind the cyber attack, how much data was compromised, or whether it has received a ransom demand.