Cyberattack leaves Co-op in chaos

The supermarket giant Co-op has been thrown into disarray following a cyberattack, leaving shelves empty in shops across the country. Having discovered an attempted attack on the 30^th of April and with “sustained malicious attempts by hackers” in the following days, the chain was forced to shut down sections of their IT system, revealing in a message that this “necessitated the temporary shutdown of certain elements of our supply chain and logistics operations”.

The Co-op have further admitted that hackers have gained access to a “significant number” of customer-related data. Though passwords and financial information have not been accessed, names and contact details have, with chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq advising members to “take the usual steps to keep their passwords safe”.

This news comes just days after another serious cyber-incident was experienced by M&S, an event still under investigation by the Metropolitan Police cybercrime unit and the National Crime Agency (NCA), as they commence investigation into this newest attack. Both incidents are being linked to tactics frequently employed by hacker group Scattered Spider and associates such as Lapsus$.

Products are now being diverted to more remote communities across the country as they are most affected by the availability issues.