Pub giant falls foul to cyber breach

JD Wetherspoon is the most recent company from the FTSE 350 to concede a cyber breach.

The pub chain vowed to take action after finding that some staff and customer data has been illegally accessed.

The data was breached from Wetherspoon’s old website, now replaced completely and run by a digital partner that has recently come on board.

Any customers that have been affected by the breach have been notified by Wetherspoon’s, and a top cyber specialist was contacted to carry out a full investigation.

The firm said that 100 customers with vouchers acquired online prior to August last year had very limited debit/credit card information accessed by hackers.

It also revealed that the cyber criminals acquired only  the last four digits from card numbers and that other data, such as expiry dates and customer names, remained safe. The company assured customers that the details taken were not enough to make fraudulent transactions.

Chief Executive for Wetherspoon’s, John Hutson, said:

“Unfortunately, hacking is becoming more and more sophisticated and widespread. We are determined to respond to this by increasing our efforts and investment in security and will be doing everything possible to prevent a recurrence.”

Wetherspoon’s was fortunate in this instance, but at the same time should take credit for not allowing data to be breached that could have brought more harmful consequences. Other companies may not have got away with it quite as lightly and should look at their current IT security recruitment strategy to ensure that they have the right personnel in place to maintain the privacy of data.