The Woolworths Group Data Theft

On the 15th of October, Woolworths fell into a data crisis as the supermarket's data, containing customer names,  addresses and phone numbers,  was stolen.

This occurred just weeks after the headlining ‘Optus hack’ that made the news, a possible incentive for hackers to further test and take advantage of well known companies across Australia with weak cyber security infrastructures. A subsidiary of the ‘Woolworths Group’ called ‘My.Deal.com.au’ was breached and had its data stolen which contained 2.2 million customers personal information, 1.2 million of those which had been officially exposed, being on sale for $660 AUD by the hackers.

In a statement by Woolworth’s chief security officer ‘Pieter van der Merwe’, the Woolworths Group already knew of the cyber security flaws that plagued ‘My.Deal.com.au’ and admits to improving it’s cyber security

“....With MyDeal, we identified areas for investment in the IT space during due diligence and the MyDeal team had started implementing these. Our IT due diligence work focuses on the operational resilience of the business’ technology environment, which typically includes elements of operations stability, disaster recovery, development practices, and cybersecurity.”

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