Earl Enterprises suffered a data breach impacting several restaurants

• The impacted restaurants include Buca di Beppo, Earl of Sandwich, Planet Hollywood, Chicken Guy!, Mixology and Tequila Taqueria.
• Guests who used their payment cards at potentially affected restaurants between May 23, 2018, and March 18, 2019, might have been impacted by this incident.

What is the issue - On March 29, 2019, Earl Enterprises disclosed that it suffered a data security incident impacting payment card details of guests who dined at certain Earl Enterprises’ restaurants.

Which restaurants were impacted - The impacted restaurants include Buca di Beppo, Earl of Sandwich, Planet Hollywood, Chicken Guy!, Mixology and Tequila Taqueria.

What happened?

Attackers planted malicious software on certain Earl Enterprises’ restaurants’ point-of-sale (POS) systems in order to steal guests’ payment card data such as payment card numbers, cardholder names, and expiration dates.

Worth noting

• Guests who used their payment cards at potentially affected restaurants between May 23, 2018, and March 18, 2019, might have been impacted by this incident.
• Guests who made payments via third-party applications for online orders were not affected by the incident.

What actions were taken?

• Earl Enterprises is working closely with security experts to investigate the incident and remediate the issue.
• It is planning to monitor its systems and take additional security measures to avoid such incidents from happening in the future.
• The company is requesting potentially affected individuals to remain vigilant and review its account statements for any unusual transactions.
• In case of any suspicious transaction noted, Earl Enterprises recommend guests to immediately notify its payment card issuer.

“As part of the investigation, we have been in contact with federal law enforcement officials and are cooperating with them. We remain committed to safeguarding the security of our guests’ information and deeply regret that this incident occurred,” Earl Enterprises said.