August 13, 2010
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News: Austin Cafe Victim Of Security Breach
Patrons of an Austin, Texas restaurant chain have some concerns pertaining to the security of their debit and credit card information. Tino's Greek Café recently announced that a possible security breach occurred during data transfers between the restaurant in Texas and the debit and credit card payment processing company, Heartland Payment Systems. According to the authorities, it is suspected that a hacker gained access to the data which has lead to a number of fraudulent charges. Details of the breach are not known which involved the same payment processing company that was the victim of one of the largest security breaches in history back in 2007. At this time, Austin Police Cpl. Scot Perry said that the debit and credit card data breach occurred somewhere between the restaurant and Heartland.
It is known that a number of debit and credit card customers who had visited the restaurant began noticing unauthorized transactions on their account. Police have pinpointed the time period of the breach to be between March and July 2010. Complaints continue to be received from victims which makes it difficult to know the extent of the breach. The café averages nearly 300 customers a day and approximately 80 percent pay by debit or credit card. Tino's isn't the first Austin business to be violated by hackers, the Driskill Hotel earlier this year leaned of a security breach in its system.
Investigators say that Tino's is not responsible for the debit and credit card breach and reiterate that the café is also a victim of the data breach. It is also not believed that any of the café's employees are connected to the breach. Heartland isn't a stranger to security breaches. In December 2007, the company became the victim of a security breach that involved over 130 million cardholders and nearly 250,000 merchants. The company has committed to work with Tino's to help identify the source of the breach and remediation efforts.