Of all the ways hackers love to access your credit card data, hotel records are at the top of the list. According to the statistics of a new report on credit card hacking, 38 percent of cases involve the hospitality industry. What’s worse is that the targeted businesses, on average, didn’t notice the credit card fraud for 156 days!

Considering the lax level of security surrounding credit and debit card information handled by the hospitality industry, it comes as little surprise that hotels take so long to notice hack jobs. But up to 5 months?! After that much time has passed, what’s surprising is that they notice the breach at all.

Of course, what this means to you is proactive oversight on your part. After you check out of y0ur hotel, check the charges to your card. In fact, you should make this a regular part of your financial health regimen, the same way you balance your checkbook every month. And it’s not just the hospitality industry you need to be concerned with.

From hotels, to department stores, to restaurants, credit card hackers are looking for easy access to your good credit and hard work. The prevalence of targeted card fraud of this nature breaks down like this:

• Hospitality, 38 percent
• Financial services, 19 percent
• Retail, 14.2 percent
• Food and beverage, 13 percent
• Business services, 5 percent
• Technology, 4 percent
• Other, 4 percent
• Education, 1.4 percent
• Manufacturing, 1.4 percent

According to the report, hackers prey on default and weak passwords, so pay attention to those warnings asking you to create your own password and to make it stronger. It may take a little more effort on your part to remember a password filled with random caps, numbers and punctuation, but it is well worth the effort to protect your financial health.

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