Wendy’s Hack Is Looking Bigger Than Initially Thought

Wendy’s — the maker of America’s third best-known fast food burger — is reporting that, despite initial reports that 300 restaurants were effected in a probable data breach back in January, the number now is looking like it might be quite a bit bigger.

The chain confirmed on Wednesday (June 8) that additional instances of unusual card activity have been discovered at some franchise-operated locations.

Wendy’s further reports that it has found a new variant on the malware that was first discovered and made public about a month ago, discovered in POS systems that were previously believed to have been uninfected.

That variation has been disabled, but Wendy’s expected that the number of restaurants that will turn out to have been impacted by the breach will be “considerably higher” than the 300 restaurants already affected.

“To date, there has been no indication in the ongoing investigation that any company-operated restaurants were impacted by this activity,” Wendy’s said yesterday (June 9).

The discovery of the new and more extensive malware infiltration was discovered as Wendy’s was investigating unusual card activity at its restaurants.