For many Michiganders, weekend trips to Chicago are all too common! So as I plan my trip (which is usually centered around restaurants and shopping) I was surprised to read about a recent credit card breach at one of my favorite Chicago restaurants. Landry’s Inc., is an American dining, hospitality, entertainment and gaming corporation based out of Houston. It owns and operates over 500 establishments (many of which I am a fan of – MASTRO’s Steakhouse! YUM!).
In December 2015, there were reports of suspicious activity on credit cards used at some Landry’s owned restaurants in the Chicago area. It turns out that criminals were able to install a program on card processing machines at some restaurant locations. The installed program essentially hijacks the machines and gathers all credit card numbers that it reads. While the size of the breach is still unknown, fraud prevention experts say that it takes about four months after a breach for a credit card to be used fraudulently.
In a press release, Landry’s states that “Locations were affected at different times during one or both of the following periods: from May 4, 2014 through March 15, 2015 and from May 5, 2015 through December 3, 2015. In addition, the at-risk timeframe for a small percentage of locations includes the period from March 16, 2015 through May 4, 2015.”
I wonder how many of us would think twice about paying with a credit or debit card if next to the price of our Filet Mignon it said “PRICE: $YourIdentity.00”.