Wawa data breach could affect SWFL customers’ personal info

A massive data breach of Wawa convenience stores could impact many consumers in Southwest Florida. Chances are, if you’ve bought anything at Wawa in the last nine months, your personal information was likely stolen. However, the company says this no longer poses a risk to you.

Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens says hackers have been able to see customer’s credit and debit card numbers, the names on those cards as well as the expiration dates.

This affects information at registers inside convenience stores and pumps at gas stations.

“I’m definitely going to have to skim through all my stuff tonight,” Tylor Minnear said.

Minnear visits Wawa every week and is concerned to learn that his private information might have been stolen by hackers.

“It’s a scary thing to have your personal information out there,” Minnear said.

The malware has been on Wawa’s payment processing servers since March 4. It wasn’t detected until Dec. 10 and then fixed Dec. 12.

“I come here every single week, every single week,” Jonathan Lopez said. “Like, it’s crazy. It’s, wow, man. I’m like so in shock right now because I’m like thinking about my card and everything.”

Lopez says he feels some relief knowing the breach is now contained. He’s also thankful Wawa is offering to pay for identity theft protection and credit monitoring for potentially impacted customers.

“That’s actually really generous, something like that,” Lopez said.

Gheysens says hackers were not able to see customers’ pin numbers or the three-digit numbers on the back of their credit card numbers.

Wawa has set up a hotline to answer customer questions about the breach at 1-844-386-9559 and recommends customers review payment card statements, register for identity protection services and order a credit report. For more information, see the full Wawa data breach announcement.