Checkers and Rally’s restaurants have announced a data breach that affected a large number of their branches. According to the official announcement on the website, the breach occurred through the planting of malware on the POS (Point of Sale) terminals used by the chain, and the stealing of payment card information of some customers. The company has published a detailed list of the locations that were exposed to risk, although this doesn’t mean that if you have visited these locations and paid through POS you have been surely pawned.
Checkers has informed the authorities and they are working with security experts to remove the malware from their payment systems, as well as to determine the extent of the breach. For now, they offer the exposure dates for each location, so if you find that you may have been breached, you can call 1-844-386-9554 for more information, start reviewing your account statements and credit report, and contact your financial institution and ask for help in monitoring your credit card charges.
The information that the POS malware was capable of extracting includes the cardholder name, the payment card number, the card verification code, and the expiration date. Unfortunately, this makes up for all the information that the crooks would need to indulge in fraudulent activities. If you discover such activities in your account, file a police report and submit it to your creditors, or immediately close the affected accounts and report them as breached. Remember, information like this is often bundled and sold in darknet forums and marketplaces, so it may be some time before it falls in the hands that will use it.
As for paying with POS again in the future, Checkers affirm that they have successfully removed the malware from their systems and have taken steps to prevent this from happening again in the future. Of course, this is not the first time that we report about a chain of restaurants having their POS network compromised by malware, so if you want to stay away from the possibility of having your credit card details stolen, just pay with cash on the register.
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