Wendy’s Restaurants Investigates Possible Breach
In a report today in KrebsOnSecurity.com, we have learned that fast food chain Wendy’s Restaurants is investigating the possibility of a credit card breach. According to the respected security blogger, Brian Krebs, the investigation stems from inquiries made by Krebs upon receiving information from insider sources in the credit card processing industry.
Although initial reports indicated that the breach might be limited to Wendy’s Restaurants in the Mid-West, there have since been reports that there may be breach issues in East-Coast restaurants as well.
Bob Bertini, spokesperson for the Dublin, Ohio-based restauranteur, said the company began receiving reports earlier this month from its payment industry contacts about a potential breach and that Wendy’s has hired a security firm to investigate the claims.
“We have received this month from our payment industry contacts reports of unusual activity involving payment cards at some of our restaurant locations,” Bertini said. “Reports indicate that fraudulent charges may have occurred elsewhere after the cards were legitimately used at some of our restaurants. We’ve hired a cybersecurity firm and launched a comprehensive and active investigation that’s underway to try to determine the facts.”
Bertini said it was too soon to say whether the incident is contained, how long it may have persisted, or how many stores may be affected.
“We began investigating immediately, and the period of time we’re looking at the incidents is late last year,” he said. “We know it’s [affecting] some restaurants but it’s not appropriate just yet to speculate on anything in terms of scope.”
At this time, no mention of the investigation was found on the corporate website – although trading in the company’s stock was down small amount (around 1%). We do not know yet if the investigation of the breach had hit the market news tickers.