The Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW) share price is trading lower on Monday.
In morning trade, the retail giant's shares are down 0.5% to $33.60.
However, this is better than the ASX 200 index, which is down 1.4% at the time of writing.
What's going on with the Woolworths share price?
The Woolworths share price is holding up quite well today despite the company revealing that it has become the latest to be hit by hackers.
According to the release, a compromised user credential was used to gain unauthorised access to the customer relationship management systems of the recently acquired MyDeal business.
Woolworths revealed that MyDeal is now in the process of contacting an estimated 2.2 million customers that have been affected by the breach. The company has also commenced engagement with relevant authorities and government agencies.
What has been accessed?
The customer data which has been accessed by hackers includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, delivery addresses, and date of births (if provided for alcohol purchases).
A small positive is that for 1.2 million customers included in the breach, only their email address has been exposed. Though, their spam folders will no doubt be working very hard in the coming months!
One bigger positive is that MyDeal doesn't store payment data, drivers' licences, or passport numbers, so these important details have not been leaked. Furthermore, account passwords have not been compromised by the breach.
Finally, given that MyDeal and Woolworths operate on completely separate platforms, none of the retail giant's other businesses have been impacted by the cyberattack.
MyDeal CEO, Sean Senvirtne, commented:
We apologise for the considerable concern that this will cause our affected customers. We have acted quickly to identify and mitigate unauthorised access and have increased the monitoring of networks. We will continue to work with relevant authorities as we investigate the incident and we will keep our customers fully informed of any further updates impacting them.
Woolworths' chief security officer, Pieter van der Merwe, added:
Woolworths Group's cyber security and privacy teams are fully engaged and working closely with MyDeal to support the response.
