P.F. Chang’s has revealed in an official statement that it experienced a breach in its credit card data system, causing several thousands of credit cards to be compromised. The company is now advising that everyone who has used their card at the restaurant over the past couple of months check their statements for suspicious activity.
In the official P.F. Chang’s statement, the company’s CEO Rick Federico announced Thursday that it had been notified of a security breach that resulted in stolen debit and credit card data as of Tuesday, June 10th. Federico also stated that upon receiving such news the company rapidly initiated an investigation with the U.S. secret service and a group of forensics to figure out the extent of the breach.
P.F. Chang’s is also taking action so that people can still use credit cards at their establishment without the risk of anymore data being compromised. “At P.F. Chang's, the safety and security of our guests' payment information is a top priority. Therefore, we have moved to a manual credit card imprinting system for all P.F. Chang's China Bistro branded restaurants located in the continental United States. This ensures our guests can still use their credit and debit cards safely in our restaurants as our investigation continues”, Federico said.
According to USA Today, Brian Krebs, a cybersecurity blogger who also was the first to locate the Target data breach, recognized that P.F. Chang’s had been hacked when he found that several thousands of credit and debit cards were placed for sale on the same underground store that sold millions of cards when Target was hacked. Krebs spoke with the bankers of those cards, who said that the cards had been used between March 2014 until the end of May. Krebs placed his discovery of the P.F. Chang’s hack on his website, KrebsOnSecurity.com. His website also shared how thieves get ahold of credit card information; they break into cash registers and place software on the computers that takes the data of the card being swiped.
The investigation remains ongoing. Updates will be posted to the P.F Chang’s website as they come in.