McDonald’s has revealed that its systems were hacked in
countries that include the United States, Taiwan, and South Korea – impacting
customer and employee information, The Wall Street Journal reports. The hack
was discovered after the burger chain hired external consultants to investigate
unauthorised activity on an internal security system. During the investigation,
the consultants found the company’s data was breached. No customer data was
breached in the US, McDonald’s said to its employees, but hackers did retrieve
business contact information for employees and franchises. Employee data that
was exposed to the hackers was not sensitive or personal, the company said. Hackers
also obtained information about specific restaurants, such as their seating
capacity and square footage.
In the South Korea and Taiwan markets, customers’ personal
data was accessed by the hackers. McDonald’s said on Friday that it would now
work to notify customers who were directly impacted by the data hack, but no
payment information was accessed by the hackers. “Moving forward, McDonald’s
will leverage the findings from the investigation as well as input from
security resources to identify ways to further enhance our existing security
measures,” the company said in a statement to The Independent. Several major
industries have been hit with cyberattacks in recent months, causing concern
about the impact hackers could have on critical infrastructure. Colonial
Pipelines, the Georgia-based company responsible for providing the US East
Coast with 45 per cent of its fuel, made headlines after a ransomware attack in
May left the company’s operating systems offline for multiple days. The
shutdown caused fuel prices to soar and panic buying from residents living in
the impacted states.
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