A US firm that develops vending machine systems has warned that a recent data breach may contain biometric information from customers.Avanti Markets has suffered of breach of its internal networks in which hackers were able to push malicious software out to those payment devices, the company has acknowledged.The breach may have jeopardized customer credit card accounts as well as biometric data, Avanti warned. Avanti published a “notice of data breach” on its Web site.”On July 4, 2017, we discovered a sophisticated malware attack which affected kiosks at some Avanti Markets. Based on our investigation thus far, and although we have not yet confirmed the root cause of the intrusion, it appears the attackers utilized the malware to gain unauthorized access to customer personal information from some kiosks. Because not all of our kiosks are configured or used the same way, personal information on some kiosks may have been adversely affected, while other kiosks may not have been affected.”Avanti said it appears the malware was designed to gather certain payment card information including the cardholder's first and last name, credit/debit card number and expiration date.Breaches at point-of-sale vendors have become almost regular occurrences over the past few years, but this breach is especially notable as it may also have jeopardized customer biometric data. That's because the newer Avanti kiosk systems allow users to pay using a scan of their fingerprint.”In addition, users of the Market Card option may have had their names and email addresses compromised, as well as their biometric information if they used the kiosk's biometric verification functionality,” the company warned.
Kiosk vendor warns of biometric breach
