The world’s largest fast food company, McDonald’s, has been the victim of a cyber attack. An internal investigation found, according to the company, that hackers gained access to a small number of files, some of which contained personal information. As far as we know, customer data is only affected in South Korea and Taiwan. McDonald’s is working with external experts to clarify the incident.
According to a report in the “Wall Street Journal”, the cyber criminals gained access to data on employees, franchise partners and restaurants of the group in the USA. But here it is not about sensitive personal informationthe newspaper wrote, citing an internal memo from McDonald’s. The hackers also did not ask for a ransom. The business did not suffer from the cyber attack.
In Korea and Taiwan, customer data also affected
While the data stolen in the United States was limited to information about restaurants and employees, in South Korea and Taiwan both employee and customer data were stolen. This includes email addresses, telephone numbers and delivery addresses. According to McDonald’s, this does not include payment information. The company did not reveal how many customers were affected by the cyber attack and only stated that the number was limited.
Cyber attacks, in which companies’ computers are encrypted and hackers charge money for the release, have recently become more common. Just a few weeks ago, an attack of this kind had halted operations on one of the largest gasoline pipelines in the United States. The operator Colonial paid blackmailers a ransom of $ 4.4 million.
In the meantime, the FBI has been able to confiscate a large part of the ransom, so that the damage to Colonial is limited. Nevertheless, there is still a loss of millions. The world’s largest meat producer JBS from Brazil was hit by a so-called ransomware attack last week and paid $ 11 million. (with material from dpa) /
(fds)
.
