Over a million people had credit card details stolen from multiple restaurant chains

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Everyone loves a good meal out. Meet up with old friends, share some laughs, maybe those first date jitters, get your credit card details swiped. Wait… that last one doesn’t seem like anyone’s idea of a good time, but for millions of diners at restaurants like Buca di Beppo, Planet Hollywood, and Tequila Taqueria that’s exactly what happened.

Almost 2 million customers got skimmed over the time that malware was on point-of-sale systems at restaurants in the chains, who are all owned by Earl Enterprises. If you visited a Buca di Beppo, Planet Hollywood, Earl of Sandwich, Chicken Guy!, Mixology, or Tequila Taqueria between May 23, 2018, and March 18, 2019 – go check your credit and debit card statements to see if anything suspicious stands out. You really should get in the habit of checking monthly anyways, so you can fix issues in a timely fashion.

In instances of payment card fraud, it is important to note that cardholders are typically not responsible for any fraudulent activity that is reported in a timely fashion.

In a statement today, Earl Enterprises confirmed the breach, urging customers who may have been affected to check their card statements and the list of potentially affected restaurants with the tool on the announcement page.

That malware skimmed card numbers, expiration dates, and in some cases – the full name of the card owner.

Only physical locations inside the United States were affected, online orders and third-party orders made through food delivery services such as Postmates or Doordash were not affected by the breach.

Cybersecurity researcher Brian Krebs informed the parent company over a month ago after he discovered criminals selling the customer data on the dark web. Over 2.15 million payment cards were in that purloined haul.

The restaurant chains say they are now looking at additional security measures while working with several cybersecurity firms and federal law enforcement to find those responsible.

What do you think? Were you affected by this breach? Does this make you worried about eating at these places in the future? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.