VF Corp December data breach impacts 35 million customers

VF Corp December data breach impacts 35 million customers

American global apparel and footwear company VF Corp revealed that the December data breach impacted 35.5 million customers.

VF Corporation is an American global apparel and footwear company that owns 13 brands. In 2015, the company controlled 55% of the U.S. backpack market with the JanSport, Dickies, Eastpak, Timberland, Smartwool, Vans, and The North Face brands.

In December 2023, VF Corp announced it was the victim of a ransomware attack and was forced to take some systems down to contain the threat.

Now the company confirmed attackers stole corporate and personal information impacting 35.5 million customers.

On December 13, 2023, VF Corp detected unauthorized access to a portion of its infrastructure. VF immediately began taking measures to remediate the attack and launched an investigation into the security breach.

“Based on VF’s preliminary analysis from its ongoing investigation, VF currently estimates that the threat actor stole personal data of approximately 35.5 million individual consumers.” reads a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 18, 2024. “However, VF does not collect or retain in its IT systems any consumer social security numbers, bank account information or payment card information as part of its direct-to-consumer practices, and, while the investigation remains ongoing, VF has not detected any evidence to date that any consumer passwords were acquired by the threat actor.”

The company pointed out that it does not store Social Security numbers and financial information in its systems. VF Corp also added that it has found no evidence that customer passwords were stolen.

Following the shutdown of certain systems, VF encountered disruptions in its operations. The incident interrupted retail store inventory replenishment and delayed order fulfillment. These issues resulted in customer and consumer cancellations of product orders, reduced demand on certain brand e-commerce sites, and delays in some wholesale shipments.

The company has restored all impacted systems, however, it is still experiencing minor issues.

“VF believes that the material impact or reasonably likely material impact on VF is limited to the material impacts on VF’s business operations disclosed in the Original Report which are no longer ongoing at this time. As of the date of this Amendment, VF also believes the impacts of the cyber incident are not material and are not reasonably likely to be material to its financial condition and results of operations.” concludes the Form 8-K.

“VF will be seeking reimbursement of costs, expenses and losses stemming from the cyber incident by submitting claims to VF’s cybersecurity insurers. The timing and amount of any such reimbursements is not known at this time.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, VF Corp)