MARYSVILLE, Ohio -
A Marysville restaurant says an internal investigation has revealed hackers broke in to its computer system and stole potentially hundreds of customers' credit card numbers.
The announcement comes one week after Marysville Police indicated 1,000 or more Marysville residents could have had their credit card numbers compromised.
Fred Neumeier, who owns Benny's Pizza with his wife, says he values his customers and feels upset that hackers have also attacked the good name he has worked 18 years to build in his business.
"It's not a good feeling at all. It's just been devastating. You kind of put your reputation on the line. To have some hackers try to take or ruin that reputation -- it hurts," Neumeier said.
The investigation began last month after police began receiving unusually high number of reports of fraudulent charges on credit cards, some as far away as Spain and Dubai. Marysville Police enlisted the Secret Service to help.
Neumeier says he hired an independent company to investigate. That company ruled out skimmers or employees and determined hackers broke in through the "PC Anywhere" software on Benny's computers, a program that allows you to access your computer from different places. According to Neumeier the hackers broke in November of 2011. He believes they sat on the stolen credit card numbers until recently.
Marysville Police say they believe most of the people whose cards were compromised were targeted through Benny's.
Julie Beery and her family are regulars at Benny's and say they always pay cash when they visit. But Beery, who has been coming to Benny's for 23 years, is angered thieves would attack the small business.
"I think it's a shame that people are so crooked now a days that they have to do that kind of stuff…I think it's a shame that people target any business but when it's a hometown favorite like this it really hits home. It's kind of sad," Beery said.
Neumeier says Benny's plans to hire a part-time IT person to monitor security from now on and is also working on compiling a list of everyone whose information was affected and will notify those customers when the list is complete.
