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Hackers Steal Kroger's Customer List
wiredmikey writes "Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery retailer with more than 338,000 associates, notified customers today of a breach of the database that stores its customers' names and email addresses. The company said the incident occurred at Epsilon, the third-party vendor Kroger uses to manage its customer email database." Reader SatanClauz
SatanClauz quotes the email that went out to Kroger customers ("We were notified and became aware of unauthorized access to our email list by someone outside our company. We want to assure you that the only information that was obtained were names and email addresses."), writing "At least they were smart enough to separate the email db from the rest of customer information! — or so they say..."
So, they got information that sites like Facebook make completely public anyway? I'm sorry, I guess I'm just all out of unwarranted outrage and fear today. Wake me up when they have credit card numbers, SSNs, or something like my mother's maiden name. You know, stuff that can actually be used for something malicious. All they can do now is send me an email with *gasp* my name in it!
today is spelling optional day.
I got the e-mail from Kroger within three hours of receiving a very similar e-mail from Brookstone. Although not identical, the two e-mails are quite similar. Foes anyone know who this e-mail service provider is and what other companies may have been affected by this? It is nice to see Kroger and Brookstone act quickly to let their customers know the extent of the data that was compromised, but if this is the fault of a common e-mail service provider I would think that many more than just two companies were affected by this, and interesting to see how different companies react to the same issue. It is also good to see that the third party e-mailer is given only the base details necessary for them to perform their function and are not provided with street addresses or other unnecessary personally identifiable information.
++++++++++++Important E-Mail Security Alert++++++++++++
Dear Valued Brookstone Customer,
On March 31, we were informed by our e-mail service provider that your e-mail address may have been exposed by unauthorized entry into their system. Our e-mail service provider deploys e-mails on our behalf to customers in our e-mail database.
We want to assure you that the only information that may have been obtained was your first name and e-mail address. Your account and any other personally identifiable information are not stored in this system and were not at risk.
Please note, it is possible you may receive spam e-mail messages as a result. We want to urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties.
In keeping with best industry security practices, Brookstone will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site, Brookstone.com.
Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.
We regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information.
Sincerely,
Brookstone Customer Care
You'd be dismayed at how often people actually believe that the guy behind the counter or on the end of a tech support line is the best target for a discussion about corporate policies and general unhappiness with capitalism and assorted laws of physics. The latter came up more than once in tech support. I declined to alter the universe at a fundamental level.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I didn't realize that anyone filled them out with real information. Why would you? To help Kroger track trends and marketing? Forget that, just give me the discount. :P
Filling them out with fake information is almost as useful for them (assuming you do indeed use the card). Think of it as a click-tracking cookie, but for a supermarket instead of a web site. Sure, it's nice to have all the personal information you can get, but it's still useful without that.
Certain demographic statistics will get screwed up, of course (wow, that 82 year old woman sure loves her beer, Oreos and frozen pizza!). However, a huge reason that discount cards are issued is for statistical information on purchases relative to each other. If you're in a supermarket and you see two seemingly unrelated items next to each other, there's a chance that there's a purchasing correlation.
"third-party vendor Kroger uses to manage its customer "... why the hell are they using a third-party anything to manage THEIR customer data?
Oh, oh, I know! Because they don't care about their customers data, and want the option to sue + put the blame on someone if something goes wrong.