back to article Whoa, bad trip, man: Google workers' info exposed during travel-booking software hack

Google says some employees may have had their personal information exposed after the software system that handles its company travel bookings got hacked. The Mountain View ads broker said in a form letter [PDF] sent to employees – and the state of California – that information including names, contact details and payment card …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google workers, how does it feel to know someone has nearly all your personal information?

    Sucks doesn't it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Slurp got slurped!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google should require all its large suppliers of services to keep their date safely stored in (on?) a Gloud.

  3. Steve Aubrey
    Unhappy

    Thin string

    I have moved on from a company - about five years ago - that used Carlson Wagonlit. That former company has been bought out by another company.

    I wonder what the chances are of being notified if my details are compromised in this attack? That's a mighty thin string from CWT to former company to new entity to me.

  4. fidodogbreath

    Google employees' privacy violated?

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does this affect all CWT customers or was it just limited to google?

  6. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Trollface

    Carlson Wagonlit Travel? Doesn't Accenture also use them? For some reason I feel the urge to laugh. No particular reason.

    1. Down not across

      CWT

      arlson Wagonlit Travel? Doesn't Accenture also use them? For some reason I feel the urge to laugh. No particular reason.

      I think quite a few of the large corporates use them.

      I worked at a place using them and the amusing thing was, I could've gotten much cheaper room prices booking direct than what "corporate rate" via CWT was. Backhanders are us I suppose.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of C*nts!

    Google workers finally take it in the A$$...

    Its Friday too... Thank you mucho El Reg!!

  8. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Google doesn't know which employees are affected but will be paying for 2 years of credit monitoring for all affected employees. Huh?

  9. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    WTF?

    Employees credit card numbers?

    Why does a travel agency used by a company to book business trips need the employees credit card data in the first place? Surely the costs are invoiced directly to the employer travel booking department or, at worst, the employee is using an employer supplied corporate card.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Employees credit card numbers?

      > Why does a travel agency used by a company to book business trips need the employees credit card data in the first place?

      Either a corporate card in the employee's name, or the card might just have been part of that person's PNR (Passenger Name Record), shared between business and private trips.

  10. Wensleydale Cheese

    What, no audit trail?

    "However, because the SynXis CRS deletes reservation details 60 days after the hotel stay, we are not able to confirm the specific information associated with every affected reservation."

    Granted, I've only worked with business-to-business accounting systems, but I would have expected some kind of audit trail to enable tracking this kind of information.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Twats

    I have just read the comments to this post. Some of them are appalling.

    To the wankers (usually anonymously, surprise surprise) that think it's funny for Google employees to "take it in the ass".

    Have you stopped to think for just one minute, indeed have you just stopped to think at all, assuming you are capable of thinking, that these people are people who are doing a job so they can, you know, pay for a home, food and stuff like that. It's the same as the disdain shown to call centre workers, shop assistants e.t.c. Well if you clever twats can do it better, go get a job doing what they are doing and show us how it should be done. Like that is going to happen.

    These people don't make the rules up. I repeat, they are just making a living.

    And whose fault is it that these companies have all this data to flog on? Yours. Yes it's your fault for using a "free" service. Try and think about that next time you start to whinge.

    Just saying: Cheers… Ishy

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Twats

      > To the wankers (usually anonymously, surprise surprise) that think it's funny for Google employees to "take it in the ass".

      I agree with your sentiment. However:

      > These people don't make the rules up. I repeat, they are just making a living.

      "I was just following the rules" is usually a terrible argument to use and has strong associations with some of the worst atrocities committed by womankind¹.

      You could have said, for example, that most people at the company work on useful and interesting stuff such as Translate, self-driving cars, protocol buffers, etc., and only a minority of managers have a say on company strategy, especially as regards privacy.

      Those managers probably are in questionable ground and can and should do more to establish a balance between privacy and profit that would no doubt serve the company better in the long run, when they are no longer around (mind).

      Amongst the rest of employees, there will also be those who try to keep things relatively sane in spite the aforementioned, so tarring everyone with the same brush reeks of ignorance at best, envy at worst.

      Schadenfreude is also a clear sign of insecurity and moral debility. I have found those with a tendency to express it to be utterly unreliable people as employees, partners, or just friends. I cannot see the back of them soon enough.

      So yes, I agree with your sentiment, but I feel that I should question your arguments and also point out that your tone is unlikely to be effective at influencing people.

      ¹ There, so the PC brigade won't complain! ;-)

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Twats

      "It's the same as the disdain shown to call centre workers, shop assistants "

      Although I accept the main thrust of your argument, and agree with it in principle, the sort of people being sent on paid for business flights are not the low level drones. They are management and senior devs, ie the people who can more easily move from job to job and are likely to have a bit of power in what goes on.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Twats

      Original poster of the first post here.

      I did consider royally taking the piss but then I decided to go for empathy in the hope that some google employees who read this website start to think about their and their companies actions.

      I have empathy towards those google employee's as it's not a good place to be.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Twats

        > Original poster of the first post here.

        Oh, hello Ishtiaq! How was your weekend?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Twats

          It was a good one thank you. Though maybe not quite enough beer. Still at least it was beer garden weather. Hope yours was at least as good.

          Cheers… Ishy

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Twats

            You pair of donkeys, I meant on the thread, sheesh, some people.

            I had a nice weekend as well btw, cooked an antelope on the bbq, took forever, thinking I should have removed the horns first.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Twats

              > took forever, thinking I should have removed the horns first.

              Did you try the microwave?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Twats

                Horns wouldn't fit.

  12. Richard 12 Silver badge

    Why do Google of all organisations use a travel agency?

    Surely this is something they do in house?

    Corporate travel agencies are almost entirely useless.

    We had one for a while until something went wrong leaving a lot of us trapped in various foreign climes. When we each asked them for help, they refused.

    So we did not renew the contract.

    We didn't mind paying a little extra for the flights and hotels if it meant having someone else sort out getting us home, but that episode proved that we were not getting anything of value.

    So now we use Google.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why do Google of all organisations use a travel agency?

      Because they are just waiting for the Dragon 2 capsule before buying a fleet of Space X craft... or the entire space industry.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > We had one for a while until something went wrong leaving a lot of us trapped in various foreign climes.

    And the investigation revealed the root cause to be your using a travel agency? Were they also responsible for your contingency measures, and the fact that they worked during drills but not in a real scenario?

    I say this as someone with some experience in foreign travel (including having a seat at the front of the plane for a few years). We had some travel agents who were better than others, but we always had our own contingency measures¹ in the event that things did not go according to plan.

    ¹ Sometimes those could be quite extreme. At one point they included stealing a vehicle and making a dash for the border, never mind niceties such as money, passports or clothes. Served my colleagues well a few years later.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      It's rare to need that sort of contingency measures, but when you can't get back home because of weather, or an airline IT system going titsup,I'd expect to be able to call the corporate travel agency and get help. Having them take the attitude of "nothing we can do, call the airline" isn't acceptable. Nor is it useful when you ask them for a hotel near some address or conference centre and have them reply "no idea, you'll just have to pick one from the official list". My experiences with the likes of CWT, Amex, etc. is that they are just secretaries sitting in front of terminals and offer nothing that I can't get by using Expedia, Google, TripAdvisor etc. Their main benefit, to the company, is that they ensure that the rules are followed.

      For my own business travel I always start with the website tools to see what's really available, then use CWT to book exactly what I found online. Usually gives me better and cheaper flights.

    2. Richard 12 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      @AC - So you'd keep paying them?

      They refused to provide functions they were contracted to provide.

      We fell back on our contingency plans.

      Then got rid of the useless supplier and in the process, realised they performed a pointless function and broughtvit in house.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @AC - So you'd keep paying them?

        > They refused to provide functions they were contracted to provide.

        Sounds like a problem with your supplier qualification system, or just bad luck.

        > Then got rid of the useless supplier and in the process, realised they performed a pointless function and broughtvit in house.

        Perhaps in your particular case a (good) travel agent was not worth paying the money for. I would agree that the likes of CWT and so do not, in my experience, provide great service, but other agencies certainly do.

        In my case, we used to have specialised agencies for the kind of job and environment we were involved in, and an employee of the agency who was fully dedicated to us physically sat in our offices. We had both the best and worst that I've seen. The best one would manage to get you into *any* country in the world within 24 hours, never mind visas or whatnot¹--most importantly, he would manage to get you *out* of any country as quickly as the situation demanded. The worst one had that special sort of skill that comes with issuing a ticket for yesterday and putting you on a connecting flight departing before the first flight has had a chance of taking off, to mention only two cases. He did not last very long. I do hope he was made to book his own ticket home.

        ¹ A colleague told me a story about being shipped somewhere or other and having to produce a document on arrival which, it turned out, had been (ahem) "signed" by the vice-president of the United States.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Was it a good idea?

    To announce to the world that it was their employees' data that was nicked?

    Although that might have been obvious from the data itself, now whoever is in possession of it (or an interested buyer) has positive and independent confirmation, all of a sudden making it a lot more valuable.

    Spoofing someone's real life identity is a great way to break into companies. Allegedly.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Was it a good idea?

      I believe it is mandatory in the state of California.

      And frankly, that kind of law is strictly necessary as otherwise masssive data leaks just get covered up for years.

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