Massive Ahold Delhaize data breach sees 2.2 million people's data exposed in ransomware attacks against major US food retailer

A heads up for readers in the U.S. if you haven't changed your passwords since last November, you might just want to get on that. One of the most common ways hackers can gain access to your accounts is by data breaches, where a website's private data including usernames and passwords become public. Once out, this information will be used to attempt to hack other services, so it's always smart to update passwords after breaches like the one that happened to Ahold Delhaize.

As BleepingComputer reports, Ahold Delhaize is one of the biggest food retailers in the world, doing most of its business in Europe, Indonesia, and the United States. Across its ventures, the company employs nearly 400,000 people across almost 10,000 stores. This is all to service the 60 million customers per week, all of whom should really change their passwords.

On Thursday Ahold Delhaize had a filing with Maine's attorney general where it was revealed that 2,242,521 individuals had their data compromised in the breach. The company isn't clear on exactly what kind of data was stolen, but it could be more than just account names and passwords. Personal information like names, addresses, birthdays, id numbers, bank accounts, health information, and more could be up for grabs.

"It’s important to note that based on our investigation, we have no indication that customer payment or pharmacy systems were compromised in connection with the issue, and the company identified no customer credit card numbers contained in the affected files. Beyond this, we are not providing any additional details on the systems affected," a spokesperson told BleepingComputer.

Again, this is a healthy reminder to change your passwords. Especially if you've had any online dealings with Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant Food, or Hannaford which are just some of the larger brands that Ahold Delhaize operates under in the American market.

While there's no official word on who's responsible for the attack, the for hire ransomware group, INC Ransom has made the claim. Back in April, the group added Ahold Delhaize to its list of exortions which include providing samples of documents allegedly stolen during the attack.

Still this is a fair while after the November attack took place, and it's good business for INC to claim any attacks so take that with a grain of salt. I'm hardly about to take a group that likes to target healthcare companies', making people who are already suffering's lives even harder, word on anything.

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