McDonald’s Hacked, Loss of Customer’s Data

McDonald's has lost several customer details to a hacker which includes names, contact numbers, street and mail addresses, as per the news published on ZDNet on December 13, 2010.

The details were stolen after a hacker attacked the fast-food restaurant's U.S. marketing partner and stole the details given by customers who sign up for promotions.

The details revealed information required to confirm age, a method to contact customer (such as name, mobile phone number, and postal address and/or email address), and other general preference information.

Fortunately, the data provided by the customers does not include Social Security Numbers, credit card numbers, or any monetary information.

McDonalds was worried that the details might be used for phishing scams. phishing scams are forged mail campaigns launched by hackers to steal monetary and identity information or infect users' system with malware.

On its website, McDonalds cautioned its customers that if anyone gets message or mail claiming to be from McDonalds and asking for personal or identity information, then they do not reply them and contact them so they can call the officials. They added that McDonalds will ever ask for that kind of information online or through mail.

Further, McDonalds has collaborated with law enforcement authorities after hackers broke into another company's databases and stole information about an undecided number of the fast food chain's customers. McDonalds has cautioned the potentially affected customers and through a mail and a message on its website.

Also, working with law enforcement authorities is looking into the matter of the security breakdown at the company hired by Arc, which is the marketing services division of ad agency Leo Burnett.

The security experts claimed that nowadays businesses must be aware on how they can implement security software for protecting their customers, their brand and their revenue. The first step is to make sure they are not exposed controlling their sites for malware regularly.

Thus, they also added that firms need to invest in Web monitoring tools and also be more attentive to updates and patches for third party widgets and tools they have deployed.

Related article: Macedonian Hackers Posted Threatening Message on Bulgarian President’s Website

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