UPDATED 03:03 EDT / DECEMBER 14 2016

APPS

Finger-lickin’ bad: KFC loyalty program hacked in the UK

KFC customers have had their chicken preferences exposed after the fast food giant’s U.K. loyalty club was hacked.

According to ITV Monday, 1.2 million Colonel’s Club loyalty scheme members were advised by KFC that their personal information may have been breached and that they should change their passwords.

“Our monitoring systems have found a small number of Colonel’s Club accounts may have been compromised as a result of our website being targeted,” the email noted. “Whilst it’s unlikely you have been impacted, we advise that you change your password as a precaution. If you use the same email address and password across other services, you should also reset them, just to be safe.”

Only about 30 of the 1.2 million members had been targeted following the hack but KFC decided to inform all members to be on the safe side. The loyalty club itself does not store credit card details so no financial information had been stolen. KFC hasn’t forced a password reset, adding that it’s “it’s extremely unlikely that [individual users] have been impacted.”

“We take the online security of our fans very seriously, so we’ve advised all Colonel’s Club members to change their passwords as a precaution, despite only a small number of accounts being directly affected,” Brad Scheiner, dead of information technology at KFC UK & Ireland told ITV.

It’s not clear from reports how the site was hacked, although it may not have been hacked at all. There’s a possibility that access was gained using automated software to guess account holder passwords, although why someone would target fried-chicken eaters is not clear.

KFC is said to have implemented changes to both their back end and front end systems, including adding reCAPTCHA on the website to avoid automated login attempts.

Image credit: KFC UK

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