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Dairy Queen Taking Security Steps After Data Breach

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Another big name corporation has become the next likely target of a data breach.

Home Depot told its customers it's investigating activity that might indicate a payment data breach. This comes a week after Edina-based Dairy Queen announced it too had been hit by hackers, and now the company is striking back.

Dairy Queen announced some of its stores will be going cash only in light of the company data breach to help limit any risk to consumer data.  Dairy Queen says only a small portion of its 4,500 stores in the U.S. were affected, but they wouldn't specify how many or which stores will need to go cash only.

"For my store, 50 percent of my business is done through credit cards or debit, so to-go cash only, that might be a little difficult," Dairy Queen store operator Jon Fors said.

The Dairy Queen Fors operates in Minneapolis was not affected by the breach.  He says since the Target data breach last year, franchise owners have been on high alert to protect customer information.

"I'm running three different firewalls, anti-malware programs, antivirus program," he said.

"Individual retailers are concerned, customers are concerned, and the way to simplify that is to go cash only," University of St. Thomas marketing professor and Institute for Retailing Excellence co-director David Brennan said.

Dairy Queen is still investigating to identify any and all stores that may have been hit by hackers.

"The people that are doing this get smarter and smarter in terms of doing these things so you can put up all the defenses you want but they will find ways to get around it," Brennan said.

Dairy Queen says the cash only precaution will be temporary at affected stores.

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