East Coast grocery chain security breach
- TAGS:breach, Hannaford Bros., U.S. Secret Service
- IT TOPICS:Security
Another breach has occurred and this one puts over four million credit and debit card accounts in jeopardy. The northeast's Hannaford Bros. grocery chain reported that during routine card authorization procedures, approximately 4.2 million card numbers were exposed. That makes it one of the largest breaches we've seen.
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Luckily, personal data such as names, addresses and phone numbers were not revealed. No matter though; over 1,800 cases of fraud have already taken place using just the exposed account numbers alone. The U.S. Secret Service did verify that they're investigating, but said little else. Hannaford Bros. CEO Ronald C. Hodge assured customers that Hannaford "doesn't collect, know or keep any personally identifiable customer information from transactions" and also says they've upped their network security.
In the meantime, all of Hannaford's customers are urged to monitor their credit and debit cards for bogus transactions. I say, everyone who uses credit and debit cards should already have such monitoring as part of their routine repertoire. There are just too many instances of thefts and breaches when it comes to using anything other than cash.
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