Hackers stole over 5 million unencrypted passport numbers from Marriott

There's the slightly good news, and then there's the really bad news. 

International hotel chain Marriott International, Inc. announced Jan. 4 that the massive hack of its Starwood customer database first reported in Nov. was both simultaneously less troublesome and a whole lot worse than initially thought.

Let's get that bad news out of the way first: It turns out that over five million customers' passport numbers were stolen by what is believed to have been hackers working for the Chinese government, and that data was unencrypted.