2.2 Million Consumers' Personal Information Allegedly Exposed in US Supermarket Breach
The Dutch conglomerate behind Giant and several other American supermarket brands on Thursday notified consumers of a November data breach, when an unauthorized party accessed its network. Ahold Delhaize USA Services said the breach potentially exposed the personal information of more than two million people. Maine's attorney general office also reported the breach, saying that 95,463 state residents were affected.
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Ahold Delhaize's other U.S.-based companies include Food Lion and Stop & Shop.
After detecting unauthorized access to some internal U.S. business systems on November 6, 2024, "we immediately launched an investigation with the assistance of leading external cybersecurity experts, coordinated with U.S. federal law enforcement and began taking steps to contain the issue," Ahold Delhaize said in the notification letter. The investigation found that an unauthorized third party obtained access to certain files from an internal U.S. file repository Nov. 5-6.
The files included sensitive personal information such as government-issued identification numbers -- like Social Security, passport and driver’s license numbers -- and financial information, such as bank account numbers, as well as name and contact information, the letter said. While the notification letter did not mention the number of people impacted, the Maine AG reported the total at 2,242,521.
"We take this issue extremely seriously and will continue to take actions to further protect our systems," the Ahold Delhaize said. It also mentioned the company was offering two years of complimentary identity protection services and credit monitoring in response to this issue.