Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.iphoneincanada.ca
More Rewards, the loyalty program run by Pattison Food Group, says customer personal information was accessed after unauthorized activity on one of its servers. This is the latest in a run of Canadian retail incidents, after the Canadian Tire breach last year and the Loblaw network breach in March.
That’s according to an email sent to customers on Friday evening, which More Rewards also posted on its website. The company says it discovered the activity on October 13, shut the server down that day and brought in a third-party cybersecurity expert to investigate. It says the incident was quickly contained, and that it has notified the appropriate authorities and privacy regulators.
What was accessed
On Friday, More Rewards confirmed that the following information on the More Rewards database was accessed:
- Your name
- Your address, if you provided one
- Your phone number, if you provided one
- Your email addresses, if you provided them
- Your date of birth, if you provided it
The company says that based on the information available to it, passwords, credit card data and transaction history were not accessed, and that More Rewards accounts themselves remain secure. On its website, More Rewards also says a password reset is not required. It has not said how many customers are affected.
More Rewards is the loyalty program for Save-On-Foods, Buy-Low Foods, PriceSmart Foods and Nesters Market stores in Western Canada. If you shop at any of them, check your inbox and your spam folder for the notice. More Rewards says it emailed every address tied to an affected account, so some people will have received more than one.
What to watch for
Names, phone numbers, email addresses and birthdates are exactly what scammers need to make a fake message look real. Anyone who got the notice should be wary of unexpected emails, texts or calls, especially ones that ask for personal or financial information, push you to act quickly, or include a link or attachment you weren’t expecting. If you want a refresher, we covered how Rogers, Bell and Telus are teaming up with Canada’s banks to fight scams.
More Rewards says it will never contact you for your password, verification codes, banking or payment card information, Social Insurance Number or security question answers. If a message claims to be from More Rewards or anyone else and asks for any of that, verify it using contact information you already know is legitimate, not the details in the message itself. The company adds that it only emails from addresses ending in @mail-morerewards.ca and @morerewards.ca.
More Rewards says it is working on credit monitoring for customers who want it and will share an update once the service is in place. For questions, you can reach More Rewards customer service at 1-833-690-1146.
Did you get the More Rewards email? Let us know in the comments.
