Huddle House announced a security breach impacted its POS (point of sale) system

Huddle House, the US-based fast food and casual dining restaurant chain, announced late on February 1, 2019, that a security breach has impacted its POS (point of sale) system, thus impacting the payment card information of customers.

Security notification of Huddle House stated that their locations were targeted recently by malicious cyber activity that involves a few corporate franchisee-operated restaurants. "Criminals compromised a third-party point of sale (POS) vendor's data system and utilized the vendor's assistance tools to gain remote access-and the ability to deploy malware-to some Huddle House corporate and franchisee POS systems," as per a security alert by Huddle House on their front page.

Since August 2017, the hack might be going on. However, the US-based fast food and casual dining restaurant chain had no idea till now, that their payment systems had been compromised. Huddle House says that they first came to know about this compromise when the law enforcement agency along with their credit card processor have contacted them, and said that they might have become a victim of cyberattack.

The company said in less than 24 hrs. since getting notified, that they retained a "leading IT investigation and security firm" in order to investigate about this incident. Moreover, they also deployed software so as to prevent future attacks. Huddle House also immediately notified their users.

Although till now, the initial investigations have not revealed how many Huddle House locations were exactly affected. But incase if anyone has used their debit or credit card in any of the Huddle House restaurants in between August 1, 2017 and now, then his/her card information might be at risk.

Huddle House has told all of their customers who have used their debit or credit cards in any of their 341 locations from August 1, 2017, to February 1, 2019 (date of breach disclosure) to immediately review transaction history for any kind of suspicious transactions.

The restaurant chain also said that "if you believe your payment card may have been affected, please contact your bank or card issuer immediately".

The malware type that has been installed on POS system was yet to be disclosed, although Huddle House have said that malware deployed on their POS system has been designed to collect the data like credit/debit card number, cardholder name, cardholder verification value, expiration date, and service code.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/19/2019