The Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (Perhimpunan Hotel dan Restoran Indonesia or PHRI) revealed on Monday, 12th of August, that there was data falsification on Google Business accounts affecting several hotels in various regions of Indonesia.
According to PHRI, this data falsification occurred on Sunday, 11th of August. The General Chairman of PHRI, Hariyadi BS Sukamdani, stated that this data breach targeted more than 200 hotels across Indonesia.
“It was reported earlier that 92 hotels in East Java were affected, 156 hotels in Central Java, and eight hotels in Lampung. We are still collecting data in other regions,” Sukamdani told the press on Monday.
In a post uploaded on X on Tuesday, 13th of August, Google Indonesia acknowledged that the data breach and falsification did indeed take place. Google Indonesia also highlighted that a data restoration effort is currently underway.
“We understand there are issues with the information on Business Profiles [part of Google Business],” stated Google Indonesia in the aforementioned X post. “Our policies clearly state that user changes must be based on factual information, and our team works around the clock to combat activity that violates our policies. We experienced a technical issue that impacted information changes on some Business Profiles and have implemented a fix to prevent such incorrect changes from occurring again. We are also in the process of restoring accurate information.”
The data breach was conducted by falsifying the hotel’s contact information as it appeared on the Business Profile section of the hotel’s Google Business page. The perpetrator falsified the hotel’s telephone or WhatsApp number. As a result, prospective hotel guests unknowingly engaged with an impostor rather than the actual hotel reception desk.
With false discounted prices to entice prospective hotel guests, the perpetrator later persuaded them to transfer the staying fee to the latter’s bank account instead.
“The price of the room was [as informed by the perpetrator] much cheaper [than the normal price], so people were interested in transferring [their money],” added Sukamdani.