Dairy Queen, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned purveyor of ice cream treats and a fast-food chicken-fried steak sandwich known only as the Dude, has become the latest chain to have customer card data compromised by hackers.The breach took place in August and September and affected about 600,000 credit and debit cards, and was carried out using the Backoff malware.
Dairy Queen announced on Thursday that its customer data had been compromised by malware.The ice cream chain said the breach affected 395 of its over 4,500 locations in the United States. The hacked information contained the names and credit card information of past customers. Fewer than 600,000 cards were affected.
To compensate for the damage and regain its reputation, the company has offered free identity repair service for 12 months/1 year to the victims and franchise owners including those at Orange Julius site. The president and CEO of International Dairy Queen, John Gainor, stated clearly that
“Our customers continue to be our top priority.”
The Backoff malware used to hack Dairy Queen has been used to attack more than 1,000 businesses, the Secret Service reports. Large retailers such as Target and Home Depot have been targeted for larger hacks. Last week, JP Morgan Chase announced a data breach in its system that affected over 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.
US CERT also warned over the summer that Backoff had low to zero anti-virus detection rates, which meant that even fully updated anti-virus engines on fully patched computers could not identify the malware as malicious. Even now, companies are still in the position of having to actively search for Backoff on their systems, prompting the additional warning from the Feds.