Who: Panera Bread, an American chain of fast food restaurants.
What: Panera Bread likely paid a ransom after a ransomware attack in March. The attack resulted in the theft of personal information, including names and Social Security Numbers of employees, and caused significant disruptions to their operations.
Impact:
Data Breach: Employee personal information, including names and Social Security Numbers, was stolen.
Operational Disruption: The ransomware attack encrypted Panera’s virtual machines, affecting the website, phone systems, mobile app, point-of-sale, and internal systems for a week.
Ransom Payment: An internal email and a Reddit post by an alleged employee suggest that Panera paid a ransom to ensure the deletion of stolen data and prevent its public release.
Uncertain Data Deletion: Despite assurances from the hackers, there's no guarantee the stolen data was truly deleted, as ransomware groups have a history of reneging on such promises.
This incident underscores the risks and potential repercussions of ransomware attacks, including the uncertain reliability of ransom payments in securing data deletion.
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