PDQ Restaurants Find Intruder Lurking In The Network For Nearly A Year

Sometimes we don’t want to mess with all the details that go into making dinner. So, we go out to a restaurant and let someone else shop for groceries, cook it, serve it to us, and then clean up after us. All we want to do sometimes is eat it and we’re willing to provide a payment card to a food provider for that convenience. Unfortunately, that means we sometimes give up that payment card information to hackers. And that is exactly what happened at PDQ restaurant locations.

The company discovered a breach that was active between May of 2017 and April of 2018. That’s nearly one year that someone was poking around in its network without anyone having a clue. Nearly all locations were affected. Just a handful in Florida and North Carolina weren’t. So, if you ate there and paid with a card during that time, you can and should assume your number was accessed.

Be sure to monitor all payment card charges, regardless of whether or not your information was breached. If at all possible, watch these more often than once a month when your statement arrives. Most payment card companies make it very easy to just log in via the Internet or a convenient app to see what has been charged. If anything looks even slightly suspicious, contact the card issuer. The faster this happens, the easier it is for you and the financial institution to resolve it.

PDQ says the intruder got into the network via a third party vendor using a remote connection tool. This is also a good reminder to those who work with third parties to vet those vendors carefully and hold them accountable for your network security. Outsourcing is a great way to be more efficient and to save money. But when they are negligent with your connection and/or your data, it can be extremely costly.

PDQ has stated it’s working with investigators and law enforcement and is taking steps to improve security, in hopes this doesn’t happen again.