Did you eat at Arby’s between Oct. 25, 2016 and Jan. 19, 2017? Did you use your credit or debit card? If so, your personal information may have been captured by malware.
Every day, consumers entrust sensitive information to the businesses they patronize. Accordingly, businesses such as Arby’s owe a duty to their customers to securely maintain that information in confidence, and they must maintain sufficient safeguards to prevent criminals from accessing that information.
Unfortunately, it appears that Arby’s failed in its duty to maintain the security of its customers’ credit card information. On February 9, 2017, the security website Krebs on Security reported that Arby’s had acknowledged in a statement that malware had infected the payment card systems of some of its company-owned stores, of which there are over 1,000 in the United States. According to Krebs, the malware appears to have affected transactions between October 25, 2016, and January 19, 2017, and may have captured data for as many as 355,000 credit and debit accounts. Arby’s informed Krebs that it was “first notified by industry partners in mid-January about a breach at some stores, but that it had not gone public about the incident at the request of the FBI.” Although Arby’s has claimed in statements to Krebs and USA Today that the malware has been eradicated, it has also acknowledged that their investigation is ongoing.
Any potential data breach should be taken very seriously, as the personal harm that can result is limitless and may include fraud or identity theft. Here, potentially hundreds of thousands of Arby’s customers’ personal information has fallen into the hands of criminals and may soon be, if it has not already been, used for fraudulent purposes.
Attorneys at Finkelstein, Blankinship, Frei-Pearson & Garber, LLP have successfully brought lawsuits on behalf of data breach victims. We are currently investigating this matter, as well as other data breaches. If you believe that your credit or debit card information may have been captured at an Arby’s location, please contact us to discuss your legal options.