Wendy's Breach May be Bigger than Either Target or Home Depot

It’s estimated that well over 1.5 million customers are served each day at Wendy’s. If you were one of those recently, you may have received a new debit or credit card in the mail. That is because the company announced it is investigating a data breach and with limited information on exactly how many customers were involved or what data was taken, some card issuers are just sending out new cards.

The breach announcement was released in January. However, some in the financial industry are saying the number of people affected may be far higher than originally speculated. In a report by Brian Krebs some have said that what is being seen in the credit union industry since, could make this one even bigger than the intrusions at Home Depot or Target.

Anyone who used payment cards at Wendy’s should pay close attention to charges on any cards used at Wendy’s locations throughout North America. The company has not communicated any information regarding which locations were involved, dollar transaction amounts, or when it possibly occurred. So, make sure you review statements and charges at least monthly. Notify your financial institution immediately to remedy any discrepancies.

In addition, it isn’t known if the intruder(s) is possibly still roaming around on the network, so it subsequently isn’t known if customers are still being impacted and may continue to be over and over. Therefore, even if you catch a couple of charges, there may be more fraudulent charges later. So keep checking.

Remember when using payment cards, if you are given the option to use it as a debit or credit, the credit option is more secure. That is because if thieves also have your PIN, they can create a phony card and use it to empty your bank account. In this case, there is some evidence that the thieves are using the cards of those with large account balances and doing just that.

Also, while most retailers who accept credit cards with the EMV chips will require using it, if you run across one that gives the option to swipe or insert it, use the insert option. Those EMV chips make it more difficult for someone to counterfeit the cards. 

An anonymous credit union CEO told Krebs that his organization may actually face costs of up to 10 times more than what it did after the Target and Home Depot Breaches. That is no laughing matter. Those two alone resulted in theft of 40 million cards and 56 million cards respectively and cost credit unions and banks around $200 million to reissue compromised cards.