Cafes and Movie Theaters Hit by Cyberattacks: "Coupons Cannot Be Used"

[Anchor]

The attacks by hackers are spreading beyond the financial sector to various industries. With anywhere holding customer information becoming a target, consumers are facing direct damage.

Reporter An Huijae has the details.

[Reporter]

This is a mobile coupon usable across Lotte Group affiliates.

Called Giftiel, it allows convenient product exchanges and is widely used for gifting.

However, SBS has received a series of reports stating that the service recently stopped working.

When trying to exchange movie tickets at a theater in Seoul,

[It probably will not work because the Giftiel site is currently under maintenance.]

Attempts to exchange drinks at a cafe are also repeatedly blocked.

[(They said it is not available at the theater.) Then it probably will not work for us either.]

Notices stating that coupons cannot be used have been posted on fast-food restaurant kiosks.

[Affected Consumer: They unilaterally sent a notification ending the coupon event. Aside from the personal information leak, I cannot figure out what is going on, and I am not getting the coupon benefits I wanted to use...]br />
The operating company stated, "We had the personal information of about 18,000 individuals stolen due to an external hacking attack, and we had to suspend the service while preparing security measures."

It added, "We plan to normalize operations by November 4 and extend the expiration date of all coupons by 30 days."

Meanwhile, allegations have been raised that a major coffee franchise company also retained information of members who had already withdrawn from the service, which was then stolen in a hacker attack.

As hacker attacks rapidly spread beyond the financial sector to industries overall that hold personal information, experts point out that comprehensive measures at the government level are urgently needed.

(Video editing: Lee Seung-jin, VJ: Lee Ji-hwan)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.