Which Suburban Restaurants Were Affected by Recent Credit Card Data Breach?

Four suburban restaurants and several restaurants in the city of Chicago were affected by a recent credit card data breach.

Landry’s, Inc., which is based in Houston and runs over 500 high-end and casual dining establishments around the world, released a list this past week of the restaurants affected by the credit card breach. The company began an investigation after receiving a report of suspicious activity regarding cards that had been legitimately used at some of their locations, according to information posted on Landry’s website. They hired a cyber-security firm to look into the issue.

The investigation showed the breach occurred after the criminals installed a program on payment processing devices at some of the restaurants, food and beverage outlets, spas, entertainment destinations and managed properties. The program was designed to search for data from the magnetic strip of payment cards that had been swiped, which included the cardholder name, card number, expiration date and internal verification code, as the data was being routed through the affected systems.

Locations were affected at different times during one or both of the following periods: from May 4, 2014, through March 15, 2015, and from May 5, 2015, through Dec. 3, 2015. In addition, the at-risk timeframe for a small percentage of locations includes the period from March 16, 2015, through May 4, 2015.

The following Chicagoland restaurants were affected by the credit card data breach:

• Bubba Gump Shrimp, Chicago: 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Claim Jumper, Lombard: 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Mastro’s, Chicago: 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015
• McCormick & Schmick’s, Chicago (Chestnut St.): 5/9/2014 to 12/3/2015
• McCormick & Schmick’s, Chicago (East Wacker): 5/9/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• McCormick & Schmick’s, Oak Brook: 5/9/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Morton’s, Chicago (East Wacker Place): 5/10/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Morton’s, Chicago (State Street): 5/10/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Morton’s, Schaumburg: 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Rainforest Cafe, Chicago (Downtown): 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Rainforest Cafe, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg: 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015

The company also noted there was a security data breach at Capis Italian Kitchen in Chicago prior to that business closing. Customers could have been affected by the breach at any point on or before Nov. 16, 2014.

Enhanced security measures, including end-to-end encryption, have been implemented to prevent a similar issue from occurring in the future, and the companies continue to support law enforcement’s investigation. The companies are also working closely with the payment card networks to identify potentially affected cards so the card issuers can be made aware and initiate heightened monitoring of those accounts.

More via the Landry’s press release