McMenamins Tells Employees Personal Information Was Stolen in Ransomware Attack

McMenamins told its employees in a memo on Dec. 21 that much of their personal information was stolen during a ransomware attack the company suffered on Dec. 12.

The memo, which McMenamins shared with WW, reads in part: “We have determined that the hackers did steal certain business records containing the following categories of employee information: name, address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, medical notes, performance and disciplinary notes, Social Security number, health insurance plan election, income amount, and retirement contribution amounts.”

The memo confirmed much of the 2,700 employees’ worst fears: loads of their personal information is now being held for ransom by a hacker.

“We are working closing with a team of cybersecurity experts, and we have notified the FBI and are cooperating with their investigation,” the company told employees in the memo. “We had security safeguards in place and a dedicated IT group that works to protect our systems and the information on them. Somehow hackers bypassed our security controls, and we are working to figure out how that happened.”

Employees tell WW they’ve received no update from the company since the Dec. 21 memo announcing much of their information had been stolen.

McMenamins told employees there’s no evidence yet that their information has been fraudulently used. The company is providing free identity and fraud protection to its employees for the time being.

Meanwhile, McMenamins historic hotels across Oregon are unable to take new reservations past January because of the attack, according to employees.

Only two of the nine hotels answered phone calls from WW, and none enabled a voicemail to be left. A receptionist at Hotel Oregon said that no reservations could be made past January 8. Edgefield said no reservations could be made at all, and the receptionist said they had no estimate when that might change. Employees, who asked to speak to WW anonymously, corroborated the shutdown of reservations.

A McMenamins operations employee responded to an online inquiry and wrote that “During this down system time, we are doing our best to accommodate…