. It ’ s the second breach that IHG , a multinational hotel conglomerate that counts Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza among its chains , has disclosed this year . The company acknowledged in February that a credit card breachAttack.Databreachaffected 12 of its hotels and restaurants . In a notice published to its site on Friday the company said a second breachAttack.Databreachoccurred at select hotels between Sept. 29 and Dec. 29 last year . IHG says there ’ s no evidence payment card data was accessedAttack.Databreachafter that point but can ’ t confirm the malware was eradicated until two to three months later , in February/March 2017 , when it began its investigation around the breach . Like most forms of payment card malware these days , IHG said the variant on their system siphoned track dataAttack.Databreach– customers ’ card number , expiration date , and internal verification code – from the magnetic strip of cards as they were routed through affected hotel servers . The hotelier said the first breachAttack.Databreachalso stemmed from malware found on servers used to process credit cards , but from August to December 2016 . That breachAttack.Databreachaffected hotels , along with bars and restaurants at hotels , such as Michael Jordan ’ s Steak House and Bar at InterContinental Chicago and the Copper Lounge at Intercontinental Los Angeles . IHG didn ’ t state exactly how many properties were affected by the second breachAttack.Databreachbut that customers can use a lookup tool the company has posted to its site to search for hotels in select states and cities . IHG gives a timeline for each property and says hotels listed on the tool “ may have been affected. ” A cursory review of hotels in the lookup tool suggests far more than a dozen – more than a thousand – hotels , were affected by the malware . IHG says that since the investigation is ongoing the tool may may be updated periodically . Some properties , for a reason not disclosed , elected to not participate in the investigation , IHG said . While the company operates 5,000 hotels worldwide this most recent breachAttack.Databreachaffects mostly U.S.-based chains . One hotel in Puerto Rico , a Holiday Inn Express in San Juan , is the only non-U.S. property that hit by malware this time around , IHG claims . The company said it began implementing a point-to-point encryption payment solution – technology that can reportedly prevent malware from scouring systems for payment card data last fall . The hotels that were hit by this particular strain of malware had not yet implemented the encryption technology , IHG claims . The news comes as an IHG subsidiary , boutique hotel chain Kimpton , is fighting a class action court case that alleges the company failed to take adequate and reasonable measures to protect guests payment card data . The chain said it was investigating a rash of unauthorized charges on cards used at its locations last summer . It eventually confirmed a breachAttack.Databreachin late August that involved cards used from Feb. 16 , 2016 and July 7 , 2016 at nearly all of its restaurants and hotels .