Domino’s Pizza Refuses Extortion Demand After Customer Data Stolen

Attackers have tried to serve Domino’s Pizza a slice of extortion, but the pizza company is not buying.

The restaurant chain said it has no plans to give in to extortion demands after a threat to release stolen customer data surfaced on Twitter. Last week, the Twitter account for the ‘Rex Mundi’ hacking group claimed to have hacked the websites for Domino’s in France and Belgium and stole data belonging to more than 600,000 customers.

In exchange for not releasing the data, the hackers demanded a payment of 30,000 euros. They also stated that while Domino’s fixed one vulnerability on their Belgium site, the company had left others behind that can be exploited. The Rex Mundi Twitter account has since been suspended.

The data was stolen from a system used in the company’s online ordering operation. According to Domino’s, no customer credit card or financial information was compromised in the attack, as the system used in those franchise markets is outdated and does not accept credit card orders.

“Plans were already in place to have the system roll over ot the platform we use in the U.S.,” Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications at Domino’s, told SecurityWeek. “The site has been secured. The franchise is working with law enforcement in France.”

“This does not affect any market outside of France (229 stores) and Belgium (24 stores),” he added. “There are no plans to pay off this extortion threat.”

According to reports, the stolen information includes customer names, delivery addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords.

“Databases containing customer information are everywhere, and unsurprisingly, poorly secured,” said Jean Taggart, senior security researcher at Malwarebytes.

“The ‘no financial information’ quip rings hollow,” he added. “A leak involving a home address, a valid email, and a phone number seems damaging enough. Kudos to Domino’s for refusing to cough up ransom money, which would have set a bad precedent, but they should shutter their online ordering site until they have corrected the flaw that leaks out their users’ personal information. This also serves as another strong reminder not to use the same credentials across multiple services, as we can rest assured the members of Rex Mundi are probably testing their ill-gotten credentials against other services as we speak.”

The attack, noted RedSeal Networks CTO Mike Lloyd, is also significant because it demonstrates how complex today’s business infrastructure is.

“Bad guys only need to find one weakness to find a target of interest; defenders need to find them all. This makes for an asymmetric situation,” Lloyd said. “Companies cannot simply stop storing all information, and nor can we expect complexity of networks to decrease. The only viable path forward is automation to gain visibility into all the weaknesses, everywhere, in order to improve defensive posture before this happens again.”