If you frequent any of the following restaurants and paid them a visit between May 23, 2018 through March 18, 2019, your credit card data may have been compromised. These instances highlight the need for managed IT services among businesses regardless of size.
The parent company of these chains, Earl Enterprise, recently
announced that an unspecified number of store locations were found to have been
infected by PoS malware.
When taken together, they managed to harvest more than two
million credit card numbers nationwide. These were later found for sale
on the Dark Web.
The list of restaurants includes:
- Chicken Guy!
- Mixology
- Tequila Taqueria
- Earl of Sandwich
- Planet Hollywood
- Buca di Beppo
If you've been to any of the restaurants named above in that
range of time, you may have already received a notification from the
company. If you want to confirm whether the location near you was one
that was compromised, Earl Enterprise has a lookup tool on their website allowing
you to drill down and find out definitively. The tool will prove useful if you
want to ensure your information security.
The company was made aware of the issue in late February when
they were contacted by private security researcher Brian Krebs. He discovered a
large cache of credit card numbers on the Dark Web that belonged to the
company's customers. Again, cases such as these call for managed IT services Myrtle Beach in every
business.
Once they were informed, they launched their own internal
investigation, duly notified law enforcement, and brought in a third-party firm
to assist them with the investigation. Upon confirming Krebs' findings,
they made a public announcement to their customers.
Exercising an abundance of caution, Earl Enterprise is
encouraging all its customers to keep a watchful eye on their credit and debit
card statements and to stay alert for any suspicious activity. If you notice
any, report it to the company that issued your credit card immediately.
If you see something and don't report it right away, you may wind up having to
pay for charges you didn't make.
Want your company and customer data safe from prying eyes? Call
SpartanTec, Inc. today to protect your business.
