Earlier this week the fast food chain Sonic Drive-In was hit by a cybersecurity breach. Now, the company that was just purchased by Amazon, Whole Foods, has been hit with a cybersecurity breach of their own. The company says that hackers were able to access the credit card information of customers who shopped at some in-store taprooms and restaurants. Whole Foods did not say which locations were affected nor how many customers data has been breached.
UPDATE (10/02/2017 12:20 p.m. ET): Whole Foods has updated their site with a tool that allows you to see if the store you shop at was affected by this breach, you can find that here.
ORIGINAL STORY:
According to the company, the taprooms, and restaurants use a different point of sale (POS) system than the grocery checkout counter. So we’re assuming those who shopped in the grocery side are not affected. Whole Foods also wanted to make it clear that Amazon’s systems do not connect to their systems. In case you were nervous about potentially losing your Amazon account to hackers.
“When Whole Foods Market learned of this, the company launched an investigation, obtained the help of a leading cybersecurity forensics firm, contacted law enforcement, and is taking appropriate measures to address the issue,” the company said. Whole Foods says it plans to provide updates throughout the investigation. Hackers targeted “point of sale systems” — or the machines where customers swipe or insert their cards — in order to steal the data, according to the press release.
The rise of cybersecurity breaches at retail locations is rising, Sonic, Wendy’s, Chipotle, and now Whole Foods. Retailers need to strengthen their POS defenses to find a way to better protect their customer’s private information. Many of these retailers use the same POS systems that probably need a serious updating. As consumers, we don’t have the answers, we simply must trust that these retailers are doing all they can to protect your data.
What do you think of the Whole Foods cybersecurity breach? Let us know what you think in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/whole-foods-hit-by-hackers/ar-AAsAC1V” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: MSN[/button]Last Updated on October 2, 2017.
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