Backup Malware Infects 395 Dairy Queen Stores With Card Data Stolen

Point of sale equipment continues to be hit by specialist malware targeting it like Backoff which it is now confirmed has infected 395 Dairy Queen ice cream stores across America. Payment card data has been stolen from Dairy Queen attributable to many of its customers who went in for a cone of low fat ice cream and got a lot more than they bargained for with malware after taste.

According to an internal investigation by Dairy Queen, the infiltration happened when third party vendor account credentials were used to access the system at multiple locations. Less than 10 percent of the 4,500 Dairy Queen stores have been affected and the CEO expressed regret at the theft of customer card information.

What Information Was Stolen

The stolen card information included customer names, card expiration dates and card numbers. Other information like Social Security numbers, email addresses and card PINs were not stolen due to these not being part of a point of sale transaction process. Similar attacks were used to access Target systems previously.

Advance Warnings by Homeland Security

Both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service advised back in August that as many as 1,000 companies could end up being affected by the Backoff malware and its variants which are targeting point of sale devices used in retail stores across the USA.

How Backoff Steals Information

Backoff first showed up in October 2013 collecting payment date by checking the RAM memory chips which temporarily store unencrypted card information before it is encrypted and sent to the merchant for payment processing. It is this temporary vulnerability with lack of encryption for just a second or two which is being exploited by Backoff malware.