Popular Chicago Steakhouses And Chains Are Facing A Credit Card Breach
By Mae Rice in Food on Feb 2, 2016 8:41PM
Several Chicago-area restaurant chains may be affected by a massive data breach that involved the theft of credit card information, according to Fox News.
The specific chains whose customers may have been affected include the following, Fox reports:
Bubba Gump Shrimp The now-closed Capis Italian Kitchen Claim Jumper Mastro's McCormick and Schmick's Morton's Steakhouse Rainforest Cafe
This is all a result of a data breach at Landry’s restaurants, a group that encompasses those chains and dozens of others. Landry’s has suffered a data breach that could date back to as early as May of 2014, an issue they first announced in December.
However, Landry’s is just now realizing the size of the breach after an investigation, Fox reports, and says they will begin notifying customers who may have been affected now.
According to a press release from Landry’s dated Jan. 29, have put new security precautions in place, such as end-to-end encryption, to prevent copycat breaches.
They also explained, in the same release, how exactly the breach worked:
Findings from the investigation show that criminal attackers were able to install a program on payment processing devices at certain of the Companies’ restaurants, food and beverage outlets, spas, entertainment destinations, and managed properties. The program was designed to search for data from the magnetic stripe of payment cards that had been swiped (cardholder name, card number, expiration date and internal verification code) as the data was being routed through affected systems.
You can browse the full list of affected locations, and the windows of time for which they were at risk, on the Landry’s site.