On August 16, 2018, Darden Restaurants was notified by federal authorities that a legacy point-of-sale system of certain Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen restaurants may have been compromised in a cyberattack incident involving restaurants in 23 states.
Although the incident did not affect Tennessee Cheddar’s Restaurants, if you used a debit or credit card at a Cheddar’s in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia or Wisconsin between Nov. 3, 2017 and Jan. 2, 2018, your information could be compromised.
The company estimates the exposure to be 567,000 payment card numbers; however, they continue to assess the scope of the incident.
Upon being notified of this incident, the company activated their response plan and engaged a third-party forensic cybersecurity firm to investigate. Their current systems and networks were not impacted by this incident. In fact, this incident occurred on a legacy Cheddar’s system that was permanently disabled and replaced by April 10, 2018, as part of their integration process.
“The trust our guests place in us is something we take very seriously, and we regret that this incident occurred. We deeply value our relationships with our guests, and our priority is to assist those who may have been impacted by this incident. That is why we have arranged to have ID Experts® provide identity protection services at no cost to those individuals,” the company wrote in a press release.
Guests who dined at any of the Cheddar’s restaurants mentioned above between Nov. 3, 2017 and Jan. 2, 2018, should call (888) 258-7280 for more information about the identity protection services available to them. Representatives are available to answer questions Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern (excluding U.S. holidays) and guests can also visit a dedicated website at https://ide.myidcare.com/cheddars.
