As our world has become increasingly modernized, data has become more readily available online. Additionally, more and more companies want their users to give them their personal information. Panera Bread was hit by a data breach earlier this year and said that customer information was vulnerable on their website for 8 or more months. After an event like this, many technology-avid consumers have reconsidered giving out their information to companies.
In the case of Panera, customer data was from customers who registered for the MyPanera program, Panera's customer loyalty program that allows customers to earn rewards. This follows a recent trend of companies enticing consumers with rewards to join their loyalty programs. With more of these loyalty programs appearing, the more customer data breaches there have been. Details that were vulnerable from the MyPanera program include customer names, email addresses, home addresses, birthdays, and the last four digits of credit card numbers. Panera loyalty card numbers were also available, meaning Scammers could abuse these loyalty card numbers to spend money from prepaid accounts. Panera estimated that less than 10,000 customers were affected by the breach, while a security news website estimated that around 37 million customers could have been at risk. It has grown more difficult to avoid e-commerce transactions, putting customers more at risk to data breaches. Loyalty programs can be even riskier in some cases. In Panera's case, it seems that they did little to protect email addresses and birthdays. Seeing this recent trend, Chris Hoofnagle says companies want access to personal information but are often unwilling to pay to protect. Customers will have to decide for themselves if they are willing to risk volunteering personal information.
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