US burger chain Five Guys has disclosed a data breach impacting job applicants, and the company may be facing a lawsuit over the cybersecurity incident.
Five Guys appears to have started informing customers on December 29, when it also notified state authorities about the incident.
It’s not uncommon for companies to disclose cybersecurity incidents just before or during major holidays in an effort to avoid too much media coverage. However, Five Guys’ data breach notification was noticed by Turke & Strauss, a law firm specializing in data breaches.
The law firm, which is urging impacted individuals to get in touch to discuss potential legal action against the fast food chain, revealed that exposed information includes names, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers.
The copies of the notification letters that were made public only mention that names and unspecified information that appears to vary from one individual to another have been compromised.
Little information is available about the incident itself. The company said it identified “unauthorized access to files on a file server” on September 17, 2022. An investigation completed on December 8 showed that the exposed files contained information submitted to the company in connection with its employment process.
It’s unclear if the incident was part of a ransomware attack or if someone simply stumbled upon an unprotected cloud storage instance. SecurityWeek has reached out to Five Guys for more information.
Affected individuals are being offered free credit monitoring and identity protection services.
It’s unclear exactly how many people are impacted, but authorities in Massachusetts have been informed about 93 residents of the state being affected, and Montana about 12 impacted individuals.
Five Guys has more than 1,700 locations and employs over 5,000 individuals worldwide.
Related: Canadian Supermarket Chain Sobeys Hit by Ransomware Attack
Related: 7-Eleven Closes Stores in Denmark After Hacker Attack
Related: Retail Giant Woolworths Discloses Data Breach Impacting 2.2 Million MyDeal Customers
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- Hive Ransomware Operation Shut Down by Law Enforcement
- UK Gov Warns of Phishing Attacks Launched by Iranian, Russian Cyberspies
- Dozens of Cybersecurity Companies Announced Layoffs in Past Year
- Security Update for Chrome 109 Patches 6 Vulnerabilities
- New Open Source OT Security Tool Helps Address Impact of Upcoming Microsoft Patch
- Forward Networks Raises $50 Million in Series D Funding
- Apple Patches Exploited iOS Vulnerability in Old iPhones
- FBI Confirms North Korean Hackers Behind $100 Million Horizon Bridge Heist
Latest News
- Cyberattacks Target Websites of German Airports, Admin
- US Infiltrates Big Ransomware Gang: ‘We Hacked the Hackers’
- Tenable Launches $25 Million Early-Stage Venture Fund
- 820k Impacted by Data Breach at Zacks Investment Research
- Mapping Threat Intelligence to the NIST Compliance Framework Part 2
- Hive Ransomware Operation Shut Down by Law Enforcement
- US Government Agencies Warn of Malicious Use of Remote Management Software
- UK Gov Warns of Phishing Attacks Launched by Iranian, Russian Cyberspies
