These 7 N.J. Restaurants Possibly Had Major Credit Card Breaches: Owners

By TOM DAVIS and ANTHONY BELLANO

Secure credit card information was left exposed in credit card breaches at seven New Jersey restaurants over the last two years.

An investigation that began in December revealed that hackers were able to install a program “designed to search for data from the magnetic stripe of payment cards that had been swiped” to steal a customer’s name, credit card number, expiration date and internal verification code, according to Landry’s restaurants and Golden Nuggets casinos.

Lindy’s and Golden Nugget revealed the following breaches that took place over the last two years, and the at-risk time period:

• Big Fish Seafood Bistro in West Windsor 5/6/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/8/2015 to 11/23/2015
• Golden Nugget in Atlantic City: Parking, 6/19/2015; Banquets 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015; Spa & Salon, 5/4/2014 to 12/3/2015
• McCormick & Schmick’s in Bridgewater 5/5/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015
• McCormick & Schmick’s in Cherry Hill 5/31/2014*
• Oceanaire Seafood Room in Hackensack 5/10/2014 to 3/14/2015; 5/5/2015 to 11/18/2015
• Rainforest Cafe in Atlantic City 5/8/2015 to 12/3/2015
• Vic & Anthony’s in the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City 5/5/2015 to 12/3/2015

“Enhanced security measures, including end-to-end encryption, have been implemented to prevent a similar issue from occurring in the future, and we continue to support law enforcement’s investigation,” Landry’s said in the statement.

The company said it is also working closely with the payment card networks to identify potentially affected cards so that the card issuers can be made aware and initiate heightened monitoring of those accounts.

“For those customers we can identify as having used their card at an affected location during that location’s at-risk window and for whom we have a mailing address or e-mail address, we will be mailing them a letter or sending them an e-mail,” according to the statement.

Anyone who used their card at any of those locations at those times should scrutinize their card payments for any indication of fraud or unauthorized activity, and report any unauthorized charges to the card issuer.

Anyone with questions can contact Landry’s and Golden Nugget at 877-238-2151 (U.S. and Canada), Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST.