Tens of thousands of restaurants use NCR. / Photo: Shutterstock
Restaurants across the country are dealing with the fallout from a cyberattack last week on NCR, a major supplier of restaurant POS systems.
The company said the ransomware attack shut down the part of its Aloha POS system that allows restaurants to manage back office tasks like payroll. The Counterpoint retail management system is also being affected by the ongoing outage.
“NCR is conducting concurrent efforts to establish alternative functionality for customers, fully restore impacted data and applications, and to enhance its cyber security protections,” the company said in a press release Monday.
The hack is not interfering with in-restaurant purchases or transactions, nor does it extend to NCR’s ATM, digital banking and payments businesses.
On social media, restaurants said they have been unable to access back office tools, accept gift cards or use NCR’s data dashboard, Pulse.
“We apologize to our guests as our locations may not have the ability to accept Gift Cards or Copper Club [loyalty points],” the Copper Door Restaurant in Bedford, N.H., posted on Facebook last Wednesday. “This is a nationwide NCR outage that we unfortunately do not have control over. We hope to return to normal soon and will post here once we are back up and running.”
NCR said a “subset” of customers are feeling the effects of the attack. As of last summer, more than 100,000 restaurant locations were using NCR.
The Atlanta-based company said it determined Thursday that an outage in one of its data centers was the result of a ransomware attack, meaning hackers are holding the system hostage and demanding payment. The company then began contacting customers and working with outside experts to “contain the incident and begin the recovery process.”
Federal law enforcement is also involved.
It’s at least the second ransomware attack to affect restaurants in less than a month after the large foodservice distributor Ben E. Keith was disrupted for days in late March.
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