“This latest action is the result of the Company’s continuing investigation into unusual credit card activity at some Wendy’s restaurants”, Wendy’s said in a press release.
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Wendy’s has disclosed that a cyberattack on its restaurants was more extensive than it initially reported, saying the attackers used malware to breach a second payment terminal system. It said the malware has already been disabled in all the restaurants where it has been discovered.
According to Wendy’s, the attackers used a remote access tool to target a point-of-sale system that, as of the previous announcement, the company didn’t think had been infected. While the cards were legitimately used in transactions made at Wendy’s, the cards were then charged with fraudulent transactions afterward.
The restaurant, which has 6,500 chains across the USA and 28 countries, discovered the malware going after customers’ payment card information from Point of Sale (POS) systems, after unusual activity involving payment cards was noticed. An additional 50 franchise restaurants were also suspected of experiencing, or had been found to have, other cybersecurity issues. The new malware was used to target a point-of-sales system that was earlier believed to be unaffected. This malware has been detected at a large number of franchise restaurants’ POS systems and the number is now estimated to be much higher than the 300 already affected.
Last month, Wendy’s said that over 300 of its restaurants were affected by a hacking attack discovered in January.
Wendy’s believes that some of these third-party providers’ remote access credentials have been compromised, giving criminals access to the franchise restaurants’ POS systems they serve.
Wendy’s described the newly-discovered malware as “highly sophisticated in nature and extremely hard to detect”.
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Malware which were used by the cyber attackers is very sophisticated and that makes it particularly hard to identify.
