In This Article:
Co-op has been forced to switch off some computer systems after an attempted hack, days after rival supermarket Marks & Spencer was hit by a crippling cyber attack.
The convenience store group said it had experienced “attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems”.
It added: “We have taken proactive steps to keep our systems safe, which has resulted in a small impact to some of our back office and call centre services.”
Staff claimed online that the issues meant they would need to manually check the fresh section of stores every day, rather than being able to use their date-tracking app. Some also claimed they were struggling with internal IT systems, such as being able to add new starters into the systems.
Co-op said in a statement that it was “not asking our members or customers to do anything differently at this point”.
A spokesman said: “All our stores (including quick commerce operations) and funeral homes are trading as usual. We are working hard to reduce any disruption to our services and would like to thank our colleagues, members, partners and suppliers for their understanding during this period.”
The issues were first reported by The Guardian.
It comes as rival M&S reels from the fallout of a massive ransomware attack, which has been plaguing the retailer since the Easter weekend. The breach has forced M&S to stop taking online orders for the past six days.
Disruption has also left some shelves empty in M&S food halls and customers face disruption with click-and-collect orders.
It is not clear whether the Co-op incident and the M&S attack are linked.
Cyber experts believe the M&S attack may have been linked to a cyber gang known as Scattered Spider, which is said to be a loose online collective of English-speaking young men.
In ransomware attacks, a criminal gang infiltrates a victim’s IT infrastructure, uses a computer virus to encrypt their files and computers and then demands a ransom as payment for unlocking them. They may also threaten to release stolen information on the dark web.
M&S has been forced to call in cyber experts from the Metropolitan police, as well as from CrowdStrike, Microsoft, GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency, for help.
On Wednesday, the Met said inquiries continued to take place, but added that no arrests had been made so far.