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Supervalu the latest brand to report data breach

The company doesn't specify that PIN numbers were stolen, but refers to 'other numerical information' in the announcement that its POS system was compromised.

August 15, 2014

Card data compromise is getting to be an alarmingly commonplace occurrence. The Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu Inc. grocery chain is the latest to report the theft of cardholder information from its database. The company issued a press release yesterday acknowledging the breach:

Supervalu ... experienced a criminal intrusion into the portion of its computer network that processes payment card transactions for some of its retail food stores, including some of its associated stand-alone liquor stores. This criminal intrusion may have resulted in the theft of account numbers, and in some cases also the expiration date, other numerical information and/or the cardholder’s name, from payment cards used at some point of sale systems at some of the company’s owned and franchised stores. The company has not determined that any such cardholder data was in fact stolen by the intruder, and it has no evidence of any misuse of any such data, but is making this announcement out of an abundance of caution.

The release went on to say that the breach appeared to have occurred between June 22 and July 17 at its 180 Supervalu stores and stand-alone liquor stores operated under the Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher’s, Shop ’n Save and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy banners. The company said it doesn't believe that the intrusion affected any of its owned or licensed Save-A-Lot stores or any of the independent grocery stores supplied by the company through its independent business network other than the franchised Cub Foods stores.

Following a standard operating procedure that consumers are coming to know well, the company is offering potentially affected customers 12 months of complimentary consumer identity protection services and has established a call center to answer customer questions about the intrusion and identity protection services.