Wetherspoon Pub Chain Suffers Large Scale Cyber Attack
In what is becoming a monthly occurrence with companies and businesses failing to protect their customers details, British pub chain JD Wetherspoons are the latest victims of hacking that saw more than 657,000 customer details stolen. The attack took place on Wetherspoon’s old website, where customer’s details were stored, and even 100 customer’s credit card details were also stolen. Wetherspoon pub chain suffers large scale cyber attack after only several months since the TalkTalk telecom cyber attack which saw almost 200,000 customer details stolen, five arrests have taken place since then.
In spite of the huge data breach of the pub chain’s website, Wetherspoon stated that the credit and debit card information was very ‘limited’ and couldn’t be used fraudulently. The card details stored only contained the last four digits of the card number, not the expiry or customer’s name. These details were only stored online before August 2014 as the company ran a promotion with vouchers online. Even though limited card information was stolen, there is still a very high risk of identity fraud as so many customer’s details were stolen, including names, addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers, proving it very difficult to know what is going to happen with this information in the wrong hands.
The data breach apparently took place back in June of this year but Wetherspoons were not alerted until 1st December after being contacted by the Financial Times on Monday. Due to the data being managed by a third party, JD Wetherspoon was not aware of the problem until it was too late. An anonymous email was sent to the company alerting them to the breach in November, but it ended up being diverted into the spam folder instead. Wetherspoon have since issued an apology to their customers and assures them that no card details were threatened but unfortunately the damage has been done in terms of the data breach.
If you are concerned with identity fraud and the loss of your online information, then signing up to a VPN service will at least protect you for the most part. Le VPN can provide you an encrypted and secure internet connection, wherever you connect from, ensuring you stay safe on whatever device you use to connect to the internet. By connecting to a secure tunnel direct to the internet, you will be browsing anonymously and safely, preventing anyone from potentially snooping on your activity. Sign up to Le VPN today and enjoy the true freedom of the internet.
SPRING SALE
GET 3 YEARS FOR $79.99
NO LOGS
100+ LOCATIONS
P2P ALLOWED
Easy To Use
30-Day Money Back
Friendly Support
Bitcoin Accepted
Ultra High Speeds