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Received via personal e-mail:
Dear Hershey Consumer:
At Hershey, we are committed to open communications with our consumers and other stakeholders.
As a result, we want to take a moment to inform you about a recent incident and the steps we took to correct it.
We recently discovered that an unauthorized individual accessed one of our web sites and altered one of our baking recipes.
As you know, Hershey's recipes are built on our legacy of offering the highest quality products for more than one hundred years.
Consumers rely on us for this information, and we take the quality of our baking and cooking recipes very seriously.
We have corrected the issue and taken steps to enhance the security of this information.
We have thoroughly investigated the situation and reviewed the recipes on this site to ensure their quality.
All indications are that this incident involved only the site where we manage consumer baking and cooking recipes.
No financial information was stored on the same server as our recipes, and Hershey's online stores operate on a different system.
However, the server did contain consumer web site registration information, including e-mail addresses, birth dates, and street addresses, as well as passwords used to enter some of our sites.
We have no indication that any of this consumer information was compromised.
However, given the nature of this incident, we are acting out of an abundance of caution and informing you that this server was accessed.
We are also outlining some steps to help you ensure your security whenever you use the Internet and e-mail.
If you used the same password on a Hershey website that you use for your e-mail or other sensitive accounts, please consider changing those passwords as a precaution.
For your security, we ask you to be especially aware of e-mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information.
Remember, The Hershey Company never asks you to supply or verify sensitive personal or financial information via e-mail.
Only provide this type of information through a secure web site.
If you receive a request for this type of information, you can be confident that The Hershey Company is not the organization making the request.
The following guidelines are offered by our information security experts to help protect yourself online:
- Vary your passwords by site
- Use strong passwords
- Change your passwords frequently
- Use caution when opening e-mail links or attachments from unknown senders
We appreciate your loyalty to The Hershey Company and regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
We take this matter very seriously and have enhanced our security measures to ensure the quality of our recipes.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please telephone us Monday through Friday between 0900 Hours (i.e., "9:00 AM") and 1600 Hours (i.e., "4:00 PM") Eastern Time at:
1-800-468-1714
Sincerely,
Hershey Consumer Relations
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Posted at this web site by me, John Robert Mallernee, a loyal customer of Hershey's candy bars!
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POST SCRIPT:
Remember when (was it last Summer - - - or the previous Summer?) the Hershey web site gave away coupons for free candy bars to folks who used their computers?
I know.
I was one of the lucky folks who got some of those free candy bars!
I learned of the offer at the web site of Debbie Schlussel.
She's always telling her readers about free stuff they can get, such as pizza, pancakes, ice cream, et cetera.
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