Kwik Trip recovering after ‘cybersecurity incident’ | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #ransomware

The La Crosse-based convenience store and gas station chain did not get more specific in the statement attributed to the company’s vice president of external relations, John McHugh, but did say there was no sign that customer credit or debit card information was compromised in the Oct. 9 incident.

“The incident was detected within hours and mitigation efforts began immediately with the assistance of external cybersecurity experts,” McHugh said.

The company said the affected systems related to “productions facilities in La Crosse, communication systems within the company and Kwik Trip’s loyalty program,” but as of Thursday, most of those systems were working, including the Kwik Rewards program at “many” of the company’s stores.

Kwik Trip customers initially reported on social media that they couldn’t access the Kwik Trip app or log onto the company’s website, and Kwik Trip phones were down.

“We anticipate all locations to be successfully processing loyalty transactions within the next few days,” McHugh said. “At this time, the Kwik Rewards app and website will remain offline; however, members will receive an update as soon as these are restored. That communication will include plans to restore any missed rewards as a result of the outage.”

Kwik Trip has more than 850 convenience stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan called Kwik Trip, and in Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota called Kwik Star, according to Forbes. It employs more than 36,000 people.