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On Monday, Walmart said that someone outside the company created fake accounts on its site using the email addresses of the people in question. This resulted in an automatically generated email from the company that contained the racial insult.
Walmart did not say how many people received the emails, but dozens of people tweeted that they received them.
“We are so sorry that you received an offensive and unacceptable email,” Janey Whiteside, Walmart’s director of customer service, said in an email to those who received the message. “We are working on updating the account creation process to ensure that something like this does not happen again.”
Whiteside said the fake accounts will be deleted.
“Again, we know the email sent was appalling and we strongly believe these words should never be used,” she said. “We are looking at all avenues available to hold those responsible to account.”
It is quite easy for bad actors to find people’s addresses online, which consumers should be aware of when they receive unexpected emails.
“Actors have likely acquired email addresses from an easily and freely available ‘dump’ from a historic third-party compromise,” Vikram Thakur, CTO of Symantec, told CNN Business Monday. Broadcom-owned security software company.
CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.
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