The Sunday Herald is reporting that an international gang of computer hackers has penetrated the booking system of the Best Western Hotel group and stolen the identities of an estimated 8 million hotel guests.

The report states:

A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that late on Thursday night, a previously unknown Indian hacker successfully breached the IT defences of the Best Western Hotel group’s online booking system and sold details of how to access it through an underground network operated by the Russian mafia.

It is a move that has been dubbed the greatest cyber-heist in world history. The attack scooped up the personal details of every single customer that has booked into one of Best Western’s 1312 continental hotels since 2007.

Update (August 27 – 11PM +4GMT) – FOX News is reporting that Best Western has denied the extend of the hacking incident claiming the report by the Sunday Herald as “grossly unsubstantiated” and “largely erroneous.”

Best Western did, however, confirm that a hacker was able to penentrate its computer network in one of the hotels in Berlin and install a trojan on one of the computers designed to steal data.