After breaching the cyber security systems of companies like Target, Jimmy John's and, most recently, SuperValu, the auspicious-sounding "Backoff" malware virus has hit Minnesota-based Dairy Queen. It's an unsettling development. It's another cyber break-in, another chance at stolen credit or debit card numbers. As of now, the damage is still unknown.
According to cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, who first reported on the breach on Tuesday, the situation's bad, but it's probably not catostrophic. This isn't a Target situation, which saw 40 million credit and debit cards stolen. Dairy Queens are different. Most are run independently, so there's not as much risk of a huge, company-wide breach.
But there's a flip side, too. Because there are so many unique locations, it may take months before the company even knows how many stores were breached and had information stolen.
We don't yet know how Minnesota fits into all of this yet. Dairy Queen is headquartered here and has loads of locations in the state, but if we're lucky, we may actually get out of this unscathed. Krebs reports that credits cards in nearby states like Illinois and Indiana have already been hit from the DQ breach. But Minneapolis -- for now, at least -- is safe.
For their part, Dairy Queen isn't saying much. Dean Peters, the head of communications for Dairy Queen, acknowledged in a statement that the company's franchises were at risk from the virus, but it's still investigating.
Gopal Khanna, an IT expert and Minnesota's first Chief Information Officer, says we still outght to be plenty concerned. Even if each Dairy Queen franchise is something like a "mom and pop" store, the whole operation could still be at risk. It's a consequence of living in a fully connected world.
"We cannot look at any one piece of the link anymore," Khanna says. "Any link can bring down the supply chain."
Just ten or twenty years ago, Khanna says, controlling a breach would have been easy. The important info -- card numbers, names, addresses -- could be protected, unplugged or locked up in a safe. But in the new, connected "cyber marketplace," that's all changed. The barriers are falling.