600,000 Tesco Clubcard account holders have been issued new cards after an assumed security breach.
The British supermarket giant revealed that a database of stolen information, including usernames and passwords from other platforms, had been tried out on its websites. Although this did not always work, there were some successful attempts of access. Despite entering, Tesco claims that the systems were not hacked and that no financial data was accessed.
The rescission of the 600,000 cards and reissuing was merely a precautionary measure. In the grand scheme of things, 600,000 only represents a very small proportion of Tesco Clubcard users around the country and the grand total is thought to be around 19 million. The Clubcard loyalty scheme offers one point for every pound spent in store and every 100 points are worth £1. These cards are an opportunity to reward regular Tesco shoppers and successfully gain their loyalty.
The supermarket restricted access to the accounts before emailing all of the potentially affected parties. They assured their clients that no points would be lost on the cards and that new vouchers would be issued to compensate for the inconvenience. Tesco also praised its internal team who were able to recognise the problem early on in order to take action at the earliest stage possible and protect their client base.
Cyber-security specialists have advised against using simple passwords or the same passwords for multiple different platforms. With access to something as trivial as data from a loyalty card, cyber-criminals are able to do a lot more damage at large simply due to people not taking the necessary precautions when setting their passwords. By using information for something like a Tesco Clubcard, a cyber-criminal might be able to access many more personal accounts with much more valuable and potentially threatening information.
The advice given to protect yourself is to use password managers and ensure that for each platform, you use a unique password. In an already volatile time for traditional supermarkets, this may be reason for consumers to seek alternative places for their groceries.