Landry’s Restaurant Chain Suffers Payment Card Theft Via PoS Malware

Landry’s, a popular restaurant chain in the United States, has announced a malware attack on its point of sale (POS) systems that allowed cybercriminals to steal customers’ payment card information.

Landry’s owns and operates more than 600 bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, food and beverage outlets with over 60 different brands such as Landry’s Seafood, Chart House, Saltgrass Steak House, Claim Jumper, Morton’s The Steakhouse, Mastro’s Restaurants, and Rainforest Cafe.

According to the breach notification published this week, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names.

The PoS malware infected point-of-sale terminals at all Landry’s owned locations, but, fortunately, due to end-to-end encryption technology used by the company, attackers failed to steal payment card data from cards swiped at its restaurants.

However, Landry’s outlets also use “order-entry systems with a card reader attached for waitstaff to enter kitchen and bar orders and to swipe Landry’s Select Club reward cards,” which allowed attackers to successfully…