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Customers cheesed off after card details nicked in Pizza Hut data breach

Victims reporting fraudulent transactions

Miscreants have made off with payment card details of "a small number of clients" following a data breach at Pizza Hut.

In an email to affected customers seen by Bleeping Computer, the fast-food chain wrote: "Pizza Hut has recently identified a temporary security intrusion that occurred on our website.

"We have learned that the information of some customers who visited our website or mobile application during an approximately 28-hour period (from the morning of October 1, 2017, through midday on October 2, 2017) and subsequently placed an order may have been compromised.

"The security intrusion at issue impacted a small percentage of our customers and we estimate that less than one per cent of the visits to our website over the course of the relevant week were affected."

However, some criticised the company for failing to inform customers immediately after the attack.

One wrote on Twitter: "Hey @pizzahut, thanks for telling me you got hacked 2 weeks after you lost my cc number. And a week after someone started using it. #timely"

Nicola Fulford, head of data protection and privacy at tech specialist law firm Kemp Little, noted that the Information Commissioner's Office advises organisations to report personal data breaches that may cause "serious harm" to individuals affected by data breaches.

Under the current law there is no obligation to notify, she said. "However, when the General Data Protection Regulation applies from May 25, 2018, it will be mandatory for organisations to notify data breaches that risk harm to individuals. Failure to do so means companies could face significant fines, €10m (£7.5m) or up to 2 per cent of worldwide turnover."

A Pizza Hut spokesman said the breach has only affected customers in the US and immediately took steps to halt it and remediate the security issue.

He said: "Pizza Hut takes the information security of our customers very seriously and invests in resources to protect the customer information in our care. We value the trust our customers place in us, regret that this happened, and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.” ®

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