Emily Henry reports:
Customers of Concord’s EJ Phair Brewing Company may have noticed some unusual charges on their bank statements recently, ranging anywhere from a $700 fee at Staples in Washington state to a couple of bucks at a McDonald’s in Nevada.
The cause of those unexplained charges has been discovered as the work of a sophisticated cyber hacker, or a group of hackers, who have been siphoning credit and debit card numbers from EJ Phair for months — possibly as far back as September.
According to EJ Phair management, the hacker gained access through the brewery’s wireless Internet and infiltrated the online payment system, which processes credit and debit card payments.
(emphasis added by me)
So once again, a breached entity claims that an attack was “sophisticated,” when warnings about this type of attack have been publicized for years.
[…]
EJ Phair has released the following statement:
To our loyal customers,
Recently, our system was hacked and several credit cards were compromised. We have been alerted to the problem and additional security steps have been put in place to eliminate any further threat to your personal financials.
If you have recently been victim to credit card fraud, Concord PD has asked that you file a police report, even if funds were recovered by your financial institution. We are hoping to prevent this sort of fraud from happening at additional businesses in Concord. If you would like additional information regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to speak with the manager on duty.
Thank you for your patience and understanding,
E.J. Phair Brewing Company, Concord Alehouse
Read more on MartinezPatch.