Landry's sends 'security incident' alert regarding payment cards

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- If you ate at a Landry's restaurant recently, your personal information may have been compromised.

Landry's Inc., which is owned by Houston billionaire and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, is alerting the public of a recent security incident involving payment processing.

In a statement posted to the company's website, customers' cards were mistakenly swiped by wait staff on devices used to enter kitchen and bar orders, which are different than the devices used at point-of-sale terminals used for payment processing.

The company says the cards were mistakenly swiped through the devices between March 13, 2019 and Oct. 17, 2019.

Landry's also says malware designed to access payment card data was found during the investigation, but its "end-to-end encryption technology on point-of-sale terminals, which makes card data unreadable, was working as designed and prevented the malware from accessing payment card data when cards were used on these encryption devices."

The malware, according the statement, searched for track data, which sometimes includes the cardholder's name, card number, expiration date and verification code.

"In some instances, the malware only identified the part of the magnetic stripe that contained payment card information without the cardholder name," read the statement.

A full list of Landry's owned restaurants and food and beverage outlets can be found here.

If you have any questions, you can call 833-991-1538 Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.