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Families have been urged to take care when arranging bookings online. Security experts have warned your data could be at risk if you are not careful.

The warning comes after hotel reservations site booking.com was recently hit by a data breach. Hackers stole customer data from the provider. Concerns have been raised that scammers could use the data to try to dupe people into handing over money.

The criminals accessed booking details including names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Some customers have already reported receiving suspicious messages.

A spokesperson for Booking.com said about the incident: "At Booking.com, we are dedicated to the security and data protection of our guests. We recently noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of our guests' booking information.

"Upon discovering the activity, we took action to contain the issue. We have updated the PIN number for these reservations and informed our guests. We can confirm that financial information was not accessed from Booking.com's systems, or physical addresses. We always encourage our guests to remain vigilant to potential phishing attacks.

"Booking.com will never ask guests to share credit card details by email, over the phone, Whatsapp or text, or ask guests to make a bank transfer that is different from the payment policy details in their booking confirmation."

Now the team at comparison site The Business Hub has urged people to be vigilant online. Chief Technology Officer Andy Pickett said: "The recent booking.com 'reservation hijacking' scandal provokes a lot of questions from a cybersecurity point of view.

"It would be really interesting to know what layers of security booking.com had in place, but also whether this was more of a people and process issue than a pure technology failure." Mr Pickett also shared some tips for how you can stay safe online.

He said: "Never click links or download attachments from unexpected or urgent emails" and in contrast to "always navigate directly to official websites rather than using email links".

Another good practice is to check the sender email address for any small misspellings or unusual domains. You can also protect your data by using strong, unique passwords, which you can then manage with a password manager.

Mr Pickett also said: "Be cautious about what information is shared online, any sensitive information that could help hackers fake legitimacy to gain your trust." He said consumers should also regularly check their security settings.

If your suspicions are raised, you can always call the company directly. Another tip is to start a new email chain and contact the group using the email address on their official website.