Pizza Hut Australia Issues Urgent Alert: 193,000 Customers at Risk After Data Breach

Pizza Hut Australia Notifies Customers of Data Breach

Pizza Hut Australia is taking action to address a recent data breach incident that exposed customer information to unauthorized individuals. The company has sent out notifications to affected customers, urging them to take precautions and providing details about the incident.

The cyberattack targeted Pizza Hut Australia’s systems, which contained sensitive information belonging to customers who placed orders online. The data accessed by the hackers includes customer record details, online order transactions, partial financial data, and encrypted account passwords.

In early September, Pizza Hut Australia became aware of the incident and promptly launched an investigation. The company confirmed that an unauthorized third party had obtained access to its data, as stated in the notification sent to affected customers.

The personal information that may have been exposed during the breach includes full names, delivery addresses, delivery instructions, email addresses, phone numbers, masked credit card data, and encrypted passwords for online accounts.

Although the passwords were encrypted in the database, Pizza Hut Australia advises customers to consider updating their passwords as an additional precautionary measure. The company also urges customers to remain vigilant for phishing attacks and suspicious links sent through unsolicited communications.

It is important to note that the data breach only affects a small number of Pizza Hut Australia’s customers. The company has fully informed the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) about the incident, ensuring appropriate actions are taken to address the issue.

In a statement to The Guardian, a Pizza Hut spokesperson disclosed that approximately 193,000 customers were impacted by the breach.

Past Incidents and Security Measures

In early September 2023, it was reported by DataBreaches that the data broker ‘ShinyHunters’ claimed to have stolen the data of 1 million Pizza Hut Australia customers. These claims were made after the threat actor allegedly gained access to a database containing 30 million orders via an unprotected Amazon Web Services (AWS) endpoint between July and August 2023. It is currently unclear whether this incident is related to the recent data breach.

It is worth noting that Pizza Hut’s parent company, Yum! Brands, faced a ransomware attack in January 2023, resulting in the temporary closure of three hundred locations in the United Kingdom. Although employee information was compromised during the attack, there was no evidence to suggest that customer data was affected at that time.