Yum Brands, parent company to KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has confirmed that personally identifiable info was compromised in a January 2023 ransomware attack.
Initially disclosed on January 18, the cyberattack resulted in Yum taking systems offline to contain the incident and closing roughly 300 restaurants in the UK for one day.
At the time, the company said that only corporate data was stolen during the attack, but a filing with the Maine Attorney General’s Office reveals that PII was compromised as well.
In a notification letter sent to potentially impacted individuals, Yum states that personal information such as names, driver’s license numbers, ID numbers, and other types of personal identifiers was stolen during the ransomware attack.
While Yum notes that it has “no evidence of identity theft or fraud” involving the stolen PII, such data is typically traded or shared on underground hacker portals and ultimately used in phishing and other types of attacks.
In a January 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said that the incident was not expected to impact its operations or financial results. However, the incident will incur expenses, the company says.
“We have incurred, and may continue to incur, certain expenses related to this attack, including expenses to respond to, remediate and investigate this matter. We remain subject to risks and uncertainties as a result of the incident, including as a result of the data that was taken from the company’s network,” Yum notes in an annual report filed with the SEC last week.
Yum told the Maine Attorney General’s Office that it has yet to determine the exact number of impacted individuals. The company’s annual report does not provide specific information on this either.
Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog had this to say about this incident:
“This attack highlights not only the direct costs of a ransomware attack but also the flow on effects such as remediation, reporting and exposure to class action lawsuits. The additional regulatory reporting requirement for PII raises additional concerns and raises questions about the extent of the data exfiltration that has taken place. There is no question that this information will be sold on underground trading networks on the Dark Web such as Industrial Spy as we have seen in the past. It often takes companies several months to realize the extent of an attack, because its difficult to know where to look. The lack of data exfiltration detection means most companies don’t really know as we saw in the example from Ferrari, where it took several months before they finally admitted that data was stolen.”
This is something to keep an eye on because of the fact that PII was swiped. That’s the sort of info that is perfect to do identity theft as well as other attacks on individuals. Thus if Yum reaches out to you and says you were affected, you should really pay attention.
UPDATE: Roy Akerman, Co-Founder & CEO, Rezonate:
“We repeatedly realize the criticality of a proactive practice to remove excessive access to critical systems holding PII data while at the same time the need to continuously monitor for any abnormal attempt to compromise systems. Data compromised in a leak may lead to follow up incidents and further compromise identities.”
Increased Regulation And Threats Are Driving CISO Spend in 2023
Posted in Commentary with tags Security on April 11, 2023 by itnerdAccording to PwC, 65% of executives expect to grow their cybersecurity spending in the near term as 50% of businesses say they are most worried about a “catastrophic cyber attack”, ahead of recession, inflation, supply chain issues and geo-political conflicts, to name a few and simultaneously reacting to a new regulation landscape where only 9% feel highly confident that they can effectively manage to all the new requirements and disclosures.
Of the threat scenarios, executives say they expect the following types of attacks to increase in 2023:
To combat these threats, organizations surveyed say spending in 2023 will be focused on the following top strategies:
I have two views on this. The first is from Roy Akerman, Co-Founder & CEO, Rezonate:
“As we learn from the study, securing identities remains a top priority for security teams. With the increasing number of identities to manage, both human and machine, the attack surface is continuously growing, the infrastructure is constantly changing, and ownership is distributed across different teams.
“Attackers can exploit identity gaps and gain access faster than security teams can respond. This change requires a change in approach as well as the introduction of new tools. Technologies that go beyond visibility to provide a complete understanding of enterprise-wide identities, their behaviors, potential gaps and can stop active attacks to truly reduce cybersecurity risk.”
The second is from Byron Rashed, Sr. Director, SCYTHE:
“Cyber attacks have increased in volume and sophistication over the past few years and now more than ever C-Levels are focusing on mitigating these risks since they are now viewed as a true business risk. Non-compliance, reputation damage, liabilities, litigations and decreased revenue are all issues that arise if the organization suffers a successful cyber attack. Executives are becoming more aware of the holistic approach to combat cyber threats and are now realizing how important it is to have a high cyber security posture within their organizations.”
I am glad that businesses are finally getting the message that they have to spend money in order to protect themselves. Businesses for too long have tried to fly under the radar when it comes to cybersecurity. And that approach appears to finally be changing.
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