Cybercriminals have shifted their crosshairs towards a grocery store as the system, under which checkout lanes of Strack and Van Til operated, became encrypted. Reports have emerged that data from the phone and PoS (point-of-sale) systems were mainly corrupted after which the perpetrators forwarded a ransom demand for ransomware removal.
Jeff Strack—the President—has stated that no information related to consumers was lost or exploited because they do not store the financial details (debit/credit card numbers) of their customers at their premises.
In total, the group had to close operations for almost 50% of its stores (the group has a total of 21 stores). Unfortunately, the closure of these operations was costly; this was one of the busiest and profitable shopping periods. As a consequence, cashiers were unable to handle the processing of their buyers’ purchases, and huge lines were accumulated at the store’s chains due to the non-functioning state of several lanes.
The biggest branch of the region based in Highland managed to operate 19 stores till Wednesday evening. The Whiting branch has reopened and it is expected that before the end of the week, all the locations would begin working again as ransomware removal and recovery processes have been sped up.
Strack claimed on Wednesday that they aim to re-open their stores soon. He explained that a day before, they discovered that certain parts of their systems were affected by a third-party intrusion. Moreover, he confirmed that the main target of the breach were the phone and checkout systems.
Strack revealed that they have already contacted the authorities and are collaborating successfully with them; they have taken control of the issue and are working well to restore all of their systems. In the end, he thanked the customers for their support and cooperation.
