2.76 million pieces of customers' information at Hollys leaked in cyber attack

Seoul: Customer information held by local coffee chain Hollys has reportedly been leaked via hacking of its memberships programme, the franchise said on Monday, the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting local companies.

A total of 2.76 million pieces of personal information, including the customers' dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses and emails, was stolen by the hackers sometime between September 3 and October 7, when the company detected unauthorised access to its system, according to a notice posted on the company's website.

"We understand that the leaked data consists of temporary data files provided for a past membership service overhaul, not the data from the currently active customer database," the notice read, adding the company is still investigating the exact scope of the incident.

"We sincerely apologize for causing customer concern from this incident. We will make our utmost efforts to protect customer data and minimize damage from the breach," it added.

The cybersecurity violation at Hollys follows back-to-back leaks of customer data at local financial firms early this month. Around 100,000 cases of leaked personal information are presumed to have taken place at 16 financial institutions in a recent series of hacking attacks as of Friday, according to financial regulators.

Hollys currently has around 530 outlets across the country and is owned by KG Group, a local conglomerate whose business ranges from steelmaking to car manufacturing and logistics services.

Last week, around 100,000 cases of leaked personal information, such as e-mails, names and phone numbers, are presumed to have happened at 16 financial institutions so far in a recent series of hackings, the financial regulator said.

Early this month, several financial firms, such as KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank and others, suffered back-to-back leaks of customer and other information in hackings.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said the affected institutions are examining whether there have been more data breaches. The FSC said bank account numbers, credit card numbers and other sensitive data were not leaked.

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