The world’s biggest burger chain McDonald’s is the next high-profile organization in line to be hit by a data breach. The company declared that it has faced a small breach in the customer details in markets including the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. After an unauthorized activity was noticed in the company’s network, an external investigation was conducted. The details of the breach were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Unlike the other recent attacks on CNA Financial and the Colonial Pipeline, this breach did not involve ransomware. It mentioned that the data accessed included restaurant information (including square footage of play areas, the business contact information of franchisees, seating capacity of stores), but did not involve sensitive and personal customer and employee data. However, this data breach did not affect the regular functioning of the fast-food firm.
McDonald’s claims that its substantial investment in cybersecurity measures has paid off and they were able to detect the breach immediately. A spokesperson reported that these tools allowed them to quickly identify and contain the latest unauthorized activity on the network. He also added that a thorough investigation was conducted and experienced third parties supported the investigation. McDonald’s will leverage its findings of this investigation and the inputs from security resources will enhance its security measures in the future.
In spite of quickly identifying the unauthorized access, a small number of files were accessed and some of which contained personal data such as e-mail, delivery addresses, and phone numbers. The company ensures that no payment details were contained in the files that were stolen. Currently, McDonald’s is working on notifying the regulators and customers whose data was leaked. Also, a few extra markets will take steps to mark files that comprised the personal data of employees.
This breach of non-payment data from McDonald’s is an example of how even such high-profile companies fall prey to hackers. However, McDonald’s is not the only big firm to be attacked by hackers in recent weeks. Hackers have stolen sensitive data including the source code of FIFA 21 from the game publisher Electronic Arts(EA).