{"id":287714,"date":"2026-07-09T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/restaurants-are-downplaying-their-cybersecurity-risk-report-says\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:45:09","slug":"restaurants-are-downplaying-their-cybersecurity-risk-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/restaurants-are-downplaying-their-cybersecurity-risk-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurants are downplaying their cybersecurity risk, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Restaurants are downplaying their cybersecurity risk, report says<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/technology\/restaurants-are-downplaying-their-cybersecurity-risk-report-says<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-09 16:29:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.restaurantbusinessonline.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Three-fourths of the attacks exposed sensitive data. | Photo: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Restaurants\u2019 cybersecurity defenses may not be as bulletproof as they think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to a new report from cybersecurity company VikingCloud, which argues that many operators are underestimating the risk of a cyberattack.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A survey of 50 IT leaders from limited-service chains found that 78% had experienced a cyberattack in the past 12 months, even though 94% said they were confident in their ability to prevent one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More than three-fourths of the attacks exposed sensitive data like payment card info, customers\u2019 personal info, or payroll records. More than a third of leaders said they initially mistook a cyberattack for a routine tech glitch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLeaders are minimizing the threat of their complex ecosystem,\u201d said Kevin Pierce, president and COO of VikingCloud, in a statement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Multi-unit restaurants are good targets for hackers. They serve a lot of customers and employees and have also been adding a lot more technology in recent years. According to the report, most chains work with six or more third-party vendors per location, and some have up to 99 connected Internet of Things devices in each store. These are all potential paths for hackers to access sensitive data.<\/span><\/p>\n

AI has added another inlet for cyberthreats. Four in 10 restaurants are using AI to answer the phone or take drive-thru orders, the report found, but about a third feel unprepared to respond to AI hallucinations or fraud such as prompt-injection payment bypass, which is when a hacker tricks an AI bot into skipping payment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAdoption is outpacing readiness,\u201d the report said of voice AI.<\/span><\/p>\n

AI is also helping cybercriminals come up with better scams. Thirty percent of restaurants said they\u2019d experienced fraudsters using AI-generated videos or voice messages to impersonate executives. And 36% said they feel not at all or only somewhat prepared for so-called deepfake attacks like these.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Restaurants are…<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Restaurants are downplaying their cybersecurity risk, report says https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/technology\/restaurants-are-downplaying-their-cybersecurity-risk-report-says Publish Date: 2026-07-09 16:29:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.informaconnect.com\/platform\/files\/public\/2026-07\/background\/Cyberattack.jpg?VersionId=xvviOWFXrf2Uo97XLtD3EPhsqMoUUYPS","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[20,96],"class_list":["post-287714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-hackerexploit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287716,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287714\/revisions\/287716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}