Following the many cases of malware attacks targeting various retail stores to steal personal customer data, including Target, Neiman Marcus, or P.F. Chang’s, UPS is the next in line to acknowledge such a security breach. The Wall Street Journal reports that 51 UPS locations have been hit in a heist where hackers have accessed data for approximately 105,000 customer transactions between January and August.
UPS says that the malware attack has been contained as of August 11th and that customers can safely shop in all of its over 4,400 locations.
The data breach affected stores in 24 states, although UPS isn’t notifying all customers that might have been affected, as it doesn’t have all that data – instead the company is offering a website page where all the targeted locations are listed.
“Each franchised center location is individually owned and runs independent private networks that are not connected to other franchised center locations. The limited malware intrusion was discovered at only 51 The UPS Store franchised center locations and was not present on the computing systems of any other UPS business entities,” the company added.
The malware was used to steal names, postal addresses, email addresses and credit and debit card data, although not all this information may have been compromised for each customer, the company said.
The company is also offering “an information website, identity protection and credit monitoring services to customers whose information may have been compromised,” although it says it doesn’t have any fraud evidence.
It’s not clear at this time whether the malware attack is similar to other cases in the U.S. or not. However, in its press release on the matter, the company said that UPS Store is one of the “many other U.S. retailers,” that have recently received “a government regarding a broad-based malware intrusion not identified by current anti-virus software.”
