Credit card breaches are becoming the norm rather than an exception these days. Cici’s Pizza is the latest branch of fast food joints to acknowledge their security has been compromised. Over 135 location has been affected, according to preliminary reports. Security experts were well aware of this breach over a month ago, but the company had only come clean yesterday.
Cici’s Pizza Confirms Credit Card Breach
Once again, the point-of-sale devices used in fast food locations have been compromised through malware. Cici’s Pizza found this malicious software at 135 of their locations throughout the United States. Reports regarding unusual card charges were brought to the company’s attention since March of 2016.
Cici’s Pizza issued a press release stating:
“The point-of-sale vendor immediately began an investigation to assess the problem and initiated heightened security measures. After malware was found on some point-of-sale systems, the company began a restaurant-by-restaurant review and remediation, and retained a third-party cybersecurity firm, 403 Labs, to perform a forensic analysis.”
It is possible this theft of card info goes back to 2015 at some locations. The chain released a public document listing all of the affected restaurants. Datapoint POS, the company, providing point-of-sale services to Cici’s Pizza locations, mentioned how his employees were tricked into installing malware on the devices. By the look of things, social engineering remains a very powerful tool.
Although the credit card information theft is getting all of the attention, the assailants stole notes associated with Cici’s Pizza orders as well. This goes to show how versatile this malware threat is, and how it can take over entire systems without anyone noticing it. Similar incidents have been reported at Target and Home Depot, as well as Wendy’s.
The more worrisome part about this theft is how thieves will obtain full credit card information, including the information encoded on the magnetic stripe. This information is then sold on the deep web to other criminals, who use the information to purchase and sell luxury goods and gift cards.
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