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McDonald’s Costa Rica was the victim of a cyber attack.
One of your service providers suffered an incident and your customer data was left unprotected.
Given the fact, the brand issued some security measures for its clients in the event of receiving a suspicious communication.
The growing dependence on information technologies and the increase in cyberattacks have forced public and private sector organizations to increase cybersecurity. In recent days, McDonald’s Costa Rica sent a statement to its customers in the country that its system was violated and one of its service providers suffered an incident and allowed unauthorized access to its customers’ personal data.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, a global panorama of uncertainty was generated and caused an increase in cyberattacks, as criminals began to exploit the opportunities of digital infrastructure, and also the context of digital transformation.
To measure the increase in cyberattacks in 2021, Latin America had an increase of 24 percent in the first 8 months of the year compared to the same period in 2020, reported the Kaspersky Latin America Threat Landscape.
According to a Deloitte study62 percent of companies have suffered cyberattacks since the start of the pandemic and in 2021, 76 percent experienced an attack in sectors such as government, banking, finance, energy, retail, manufacturing, education, among others.
McDonald’s Costa Rica system hacked; personal data of clients are unprotected
Through a statement sent to its customers and prioritizing the principle of transparency, ethics and responsibility, McDonald’s Costa Rica reported that one of its service providers suffered an incident.
“It is possible that your name, marital status, address, e-mail, identity number and telephone number have been left unprotected”the brand said in a statement.
Given the criminal activity in its service providers, the brand in Costa Rica recommended monitoring the use of personal data and being attentive to suspicious communication on behalf of McDonald’s.
And it is that cyber attacks can be carried out from email with malicious attachments or links to fraudulent sites so that users reveal confidential information. These can spread quickly, psychologically pressing and forcing members to make mistakes in the process by sharing private information.
The digital world is increasingly connected and in the coming years the use of information technologies will grow in the public and private sectors and in society, increasing exposure to cyberattacks. Therefore, resilience policies against attacks and system reinforcement are necessary.
In the case of McDonald’s Costa Rica, as soon as they became aware of the incident, they reinforced security and reported what had happened to the competent authorities and to consumers, who could be the most vulnerable with data theft.
It must be remembered that privacy and data ethics have to go after information in the digital age so that consumers can trust businesses, since it is a question of credibility and identity of the company.