[Photo:  Trump Int'l Hotel in Chicago - by Ashleigh Nushawg / Wikimedia Commons]

Donald Trump's boast last weekend that "I know a lot about hacking" prompted a wave of mockery of a President-elect who seems to have skipped the computer age. But Trump does have direct experience on hacking - his hotel chain suffered a series of recent data breaches, exposing 70,000 credit card numbers and personal information of its customers. And, it paid a fine to settle with the NY AG for failing to properly notify its guests of the hacks.

What led to the settlement with New York began in May 2015, when several banks spotted hundreds of fraudulent credit card transactions. The stolen card numbers had a common thread: In each case, the last merchant where a legitimate purchase took place was the Trump Hotel Collection, a set of gilded properties that Trump's company manages from New York to Waikiki to Panama.

According to the attorney general, forensic investigators determined in June 2015 that an attacker, posing as an administrator, activated malware to capture credit card numbers in the Trump hotel payment system. Hackers stole guests' cards at hotels, including properties in New York, Miami, and Las Vegas. But even after Trump Hotel Collection knew that their systems had been compromised as early as June, the company failed to notify its customers until nearly four months later in September, a delay that violated New York law, the attorney general said.

A second hack - which Schniederman said could have been prevented if Trump hotels had implemented better security after the first cyberattack - was discovered by forensic investigators earlier this year, and targeted credit card numbers linked to 5 hotel properties. Trump Hotel Collection settled with Schniederman in September, paying $50,000 in penalties and agreeing to a host of data security improvements, including two-factor authentication for remote access to its computer systems, and employee training.