If you shopped at Wawa in the last 9 months, chances are your credit card details have been breached

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Another day, another store and/or company has its data breached. Last week, Visa informed its customers of gas stations being affected by a malware attack that stole credit card numbers.

This week, grocery/convenience store chain Wawa announced that it had been affected by a similar attack with 700 stores being affected.

Those working on Wawa’s corporate IT staff eventually contained it two days later. Despite this, the company is still unsure as to who is behind the attack.

Chris Gheysens, the CEO of the Philadelphia-based chain of grocery stores, wrote an open apology letter to customers who may have been affected by this nine-month breach.

I apologize deeply to all of you, our friends and neighbors, for this incident.  You are my top priority and are critically important to all of the nearly 37,000 associates at Wawa. We take this special relationship with you and the protection of your information very seriously.

Wawa was hit a data breach – If you’re a regular shopper there, here’s what you should know

Image: Wawa

However, Gheysens reiterates to Wawa shoppers that private information, such as PIN numbers and driver’s license ID numbers, was not compromised in this attack. It was only credit and debit cards that were swiped in certain stores’ POS systems that were potentially affected.

In that same open letter, Gheysens wrote about several ways that customers can do to remedy any potential credit issues. The CEO said the company is working side-by-side with Experian to provide assistance for affected Wawa shoppers. They will receive a year of Experian’s theft and fraud protection services IdentityWorks for a year at no charge. Other precautions customers can take include ordering and keeping an eye on their credit reports, from Experian of course and calling Wawa’s dedicated phone number for this incident.

It’s nice to see a company help out its loyal customer base. Especially since they still have no idea how the malware attack even started.

What do you think? Have you been to a Wawa in the last 9 months? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Colin Barry

I like honey roasted peanuts because they are delicious. I also like the Metal Slug games and X-Men comics because they are awesome.