Wendy’s Breach Included Payment Card Data

Few would have thought that the quick-service restaurant industry would have become the target for financial fraud that it has, and many merchants are struggling to adapt to this new reality. Wendy’s has had fits with this lately, though it’s done its best to put the most recent malware attack targeting its stores behind it.

Reuters is reporting that Wendy’s is releasing more details on the hacking attempt that left 1,025 franchised locations’ payment processes vulnerable to theft — a massive jump from the few hundred Wendy’s initially estimated when news of the breach first broke in May. Wendy’s confirmed that hackers managed to get off with several crucial bits of payments information, including “cardholder name, credit or debit card number, expiration date, cardholder verification value and service code.”

It seems as if only franchised store fronts were targeted as part of the attack. None of the brand’s 582 company-owned restaurants showed any evidence of malware present, though the more than a thousand that did are now easily searchable through a site Wendy’s established to share information on impacted restaurants with the buying public.

It’s enough to wonder how long the QSR industry can stomach these kinds of announcements and brand-damaging breach reports before POS security takes a serious step forward.