California Pizza Kitchen informed 103,767 current and former employees on Monday (Nov. 15) that personal data the company held, including names and Social Security numbers, may have been accessed by digital intruders during a September cyberattack.
A draft letter from the company to employees, available on the California attorney general’s website, states that “on or about September 15, 2021, CPK learned of a disruption to certain systems on our computing environment.”
The letter adds that California Pizza Kitchen secured its environment after discovering the disruption and “with the assistance of leading third-party computer forensic specialists, launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident. On October 4, 2021, the investigation confirmed that certain files on our systems had been subject to unauthorized access.
“We therefore undertook a meticulous review of the potentially impacted files and our internal systems in order to identify the information that was involved and to whom it related,” the letter continues. “Unfortunately, on October 13, 2021, we determined that certain files containing your information could have been accessed during the event.”
The notice adds that California Pizza Kitchen has informed law enforcement of the breach and has both reviewed and reinforced the security of its “computing environment.”
The restaurant chain adds that it has implemented measures to avoid a similar incident in the future, including reviewing its security policies.
In response to this breach, California Pizza Kitchen is offering current and former employees identity-theft protection including credit monitoring from Experian and identity-theft insurance.
Details about the number of employees affected are contained in a publicly accessible form posted on the website of the Maine attorney general. The form states that the data was accessed via a computer hack.
California Pizza Kitchen is based in Playa Vista, California, and has nearly 200 restaurants globally. The company was taken private in 2011 and is owned by an affiliate of Golden Gate Capital.
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