A vast scale computer attack hit the Italian hotel sector. The violation hit the safety systems of prestigious hotels between Venice, Milano Marittima, Ischia and Trieste, taking possession of tens of thousands of high resolution scans of identity cards and passports. The digital booty is now exhibited in the Dark Web, ready to be sold to the best bidder.
The alarm of the Agency for Digital Italy
To report the incident was the agency for digital Italy (Agid), the technical body of the Presidency of the Council which deals with the digitization of the country. On August 6, the agency released an official note to warn the danger: the documents were stolen between June and July 2025 through unauthorized access to hotels.
The author of the theft calls himself “Mydocs” and operates on a very popular underground forum in the Dark Web. The images of the documents appear blurred in promotional messages, but those who pay can get them perfectly readable. The initial alarm worsened when, on 8 and 11 August, the hackers published two other packages of 17 thousand documents each.
The structures affected and the extent of the theft
The most serious case concerns the Hotel Ca ‘dei Conti of Venice, a four -star structure in the heart of the Serenissima. The hackers subtracted 38 thousand images of customer documents who had stayed in the structure: for this special “package”, the most full -bodied among those available, the criminals ask for 20 thousand euros.
Other hotels victims of the attack are the Dorita house of Milano Marittima, with 2,300 stolen documents, the Regina Isabella hotel in Isabia, which lost 30 thousand scans, and the continental hotel in Trieste, with 17 thousand compromised documents, as reported by Corriere del Veneto. The criminals have also affected overseas: among the victims there is the Hills boutique Mallorca, a five -star hotel in the Balearics.
The prices to buy the various lots vary from 800 to 10 thousand euros, depending on the quantity and quality of the information contained. The postal police have already started investigations to trace the authors of the attack and block the sale of documents.
The risks for victims
The dangers for those who have seen their documents end up in the wrong hands are manifold. Agid has listed the most worrying scenarios: criminals can create false documents based on real identity, a practice that allows you to circumvent controls and checks. With these data it is possible to open bank accounts or request credit lines on behalf of the victims, who would then find themselves having to manage debts never contracts.
The stolen information also facilitate social engineering activities, psychological manipulation techniques to extort further sensitive data. The criminals could contact the victims or their families by pretending to be banking operators, insurers or representatives of other institutions. Digital identity theft can have devastating consequences both from an economic and legal point of view.
The reaction of the hotel sector
At the moment, neither the Ca ‘dei Conti hotel nor the continental hotel have issued official statements about the incident. Daniele Minotto, deputy director of the Venetian hoteliers ‘association, said he was surprised to the microphones of the Corriere del Veneto: “It is a very strange fact. The hoteliers cannot archive files with customers’ documents, the law expressly prohibits it”.
The weak point of computer security could be found at the time of the transmission of documents to the police headquarters. Hotels are obliged by anti -terrorism law to communicate guests’ data to the authorities and, during this phase, when the documents pass through the scanner to be digitally sent, the systems could be vulnerable to external attacks.
Salvatore Pisani of Confindustria Turismo Venice hypothesizes that the attack has affected small structures, less prepared to face the most sophisticated computer threats. The association has already activated conventions and training programs to help hoteliers better protect their systems.
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