McDonald’s has suffered a data breach in the U.S., South Korea, and Taiwan.
The burger chain said hackers infiltrated and stole data from its systems, but no U.S. customer data was breached. Delivery customers and some employees in South Korea and Taiwan, however, did have personal data exposed, including their emails, phone numbers, and addresses.
The breach, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, did not seem to expose critical information for U.S. stores. Among the data the hackers accessed were business contact information for U.S. employees and franchisees and restaurant information, including seating capacity and the square footage of play areas.
McDonald’s says the attack was not a ransomware attack, such as those experienced lately by other companies, and would have no impact on the day-to-day operations of its restaurants. Recent investments in cybersecurity paid off as the company said it was able to quickly terminate the hackers’ access soon after the breach was discovered.
The company is warning employees and affected customers and franchisees in South Korea and Taiwan to be on the lookout for phishing emails.
Corporations have become a favorite target of hackers in the past few months, with an increasing focus on ransomware. Colonial Pipeline paid $4.4. million to the hacker group DarkSide, which has ties to Russia, to resume the smooth flow of fuel supplies along the East Coast. That money was largely recovered by the FBI the following month. And beef supplier JBS paid hackers $11 million after its plants were taken offline, which could have affected one-fifth of the nation’s meat supply.
McDonald’s tells the Journal it was not asked for, nor did it pay, any sort of ransom.
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