Marks & Spencer stops online orders following cyber attack

Marks & Spencer (M&S) says it has stopped taking on-line orders as the corporate struggles to get well from a cyber assault.

Clients started reporting issues final weekend, and on Tuesday the retailer confirmed it was going through a “cyber incident”.

Now, M&S has totally paused orders on its web site and apps, together with for meals deliveries and garments

The agency’s shares fell by 5% following the announcement on Friday.

“We’re really sorry for this inconvenience,” it wrote in a post on X.

“Our skilled workforce – supported by main cyber specialists – is working extraordinarily arduous to restart on-line and app purchasing.

“We’re extremely grateful to our prospects, colleagues and companions for his or her understanding and assist.”

It mentioned its shops stay open regardless of the problems affecting on-line ordering.

Beforehand, the agency was coping with issues which affected folks utilizing contactless funds, Click on & Acquire, in addition to these paying with reward playing cards.

Because it suspended on-line ordering, M&S has responded to social media posts advising prospects that these issues persist.

“Reward playing cards, e-gift playing cards and credit score receipts cannot at the moment be used as a fee methodology in retailer or on-line,” it said in response to one person on X.

But it surely informed one other that if folks have already acquired an e mail telling them an merchandise is able to be collected, they need to have the ability to go into the shop and decide it up.

“We’re holding all parcels in retailer till additional discover, so there is not any danger of it being despatched again,” it said.

However some folks have criticised the agency for its dealing with of the outage, significantly round its messaging to prospects.

“After being informed yesterday within the night the issue with reward playing cards was sorted, went in retailer at present and was despatched away once more,” one person told the firm in a post on X.

They mentioned it was the fourth day in a row they’d tried and failed to make use of their M&S reward card.

In the meantime regardless of the frustrations, some folks on-line have praised in-store employees over their service amid the issues, and known as for patrons to not take their frustrations out on employees.

However many nonetheless seem to have questions over how present purchases, orders and returns will probably be impacted by the continued fallout from the cyber assault.

A spokesperson from the Data Commissioner’s Workplace informed the BBC M&S it was “assessing the data offered” after M&S informed it in regards to the incident.

The agency beforehand mentioned on Tuesday it had reported the incident to the Nationwide Cyber Safety Centre (NCSC), and the Nationwide Crime Company told the BBC it was working with the NCSC to assist the agency.

In an replace to traders on Friday, M&S mentioned its resolution to pause on-line orders within the UK fashioned a part of its “proactive administration” of the incident.

“The M&S workforce – supported by main specialists – is working extraordinarily arduous to revive on-line operations and proceed to serve prospects nicely,” it mentioned.

Amid the persevering with fallout of this week’s cyber assault, nevertheless, specialists are speculating round what could also be behind it.

Nathaniel Jones, vp of Safety & AI Technique at cyber safety agency Darktrace, mentioned M&S halting on-line gross sales exhibits “the cascading impression these assaults can have on income streams”.

“It demonstrates how shortly cyber incidents can cripple retail operations throughout each digital and bodily channels,” he mentioned.

And William Wright from cybersecurity agency Closed Door Safety mentioned he believed it might have a “materials impression” on the agency.

“Information exhibits virtually 1 / 4 of the shop’s gross sales occur on-line, so irrespective of how lengthy this pause is put in place, it’ll damage M&S financially,” he mentioned.

The retailer is the most recent main identify to expertise important disruption to its on-line providers in latest months.

Morrisons confronted big issues with its Christmas orders final yr, with deliveries cancelled and discounts not applied.

This was adopted by two main banking outages on what was pay day for a lot of within the first two months of this yr.

In January, critical IT issues at Barclays affected the bank’s app and online banking. It was later disclosed Barclays could face compensation payments of £12.5m.

In February, a number of banks – notably Lloyds – faced outages, leaving businesses unable to pay staff.