The fast-food franchise earlier this month discovered a breach to their database, leading to the leak of the information of 193,000 of its customers, a small number when compared to the magnitude of the company’s customer base but a significant number nonetheless, not to mention the associated risk of having customer names, phone numbers, emails, instructions and addresses exposed to a malicious third party which could be used to perpetrate various scams against its customers.
Databreaches.net alleged that the cyber hacking group known as ShinyHunters is responsible for the attack. A representative of Pizza Hut clarified that the hack only affected their Australian branch and there are no such concerns with their branches outside of the country. The spokesperson also clarified that they have swung into action in order to protect customers by consulting cybersecurity specialists to look into the breach in order to find possible loopholes that could have led to the success of the attack. Pizza Hut Australia assured that credit card data of its customers has not been compromised by this attack as it does not collect unmasked credit card data. According to the spokesperson in a statement.
“It is also worth noting that Pizza Hut Australia does not collect government identity documents or sensitive information and secures all user information with strong one-way encryption.”
Pizza Hut Australia has since reported the case to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) as well as the Australian Information Commission (OAIC), it has also promised to keep customers updated on any information regarding the situation that may arise.
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Establishments which handle a large database of customers are often a target for hackers and cyber criminals as these data can be used in a lot of different ways to carry out crimes such as identity theft, unauthorized credit card usage, personal information sale on the dark web, scams and many more. Evidently, Fast food franchises are no exception as other fast-food places like Dymock for instance have been targeted and struck by hackers as well. It is imperative that companies carry out regular upgrades to their cyber security systems to protect their customers as well as themselves from future attack.