Marks and Spencer (M&S) says it has been coping with a “cyber incident” affecting a few of its providers over the previous few days.
The UK retailer stated its Click on and Gather service had been impacted by technical points together with its potential to gather contactless funds – with many shoppers taking to social media to complain about delays.
M&S chief govt Stuart Machin apologised to prospects in a notice on Tuesday.
He stated the corporate had been pressured to quickly make “small modifications” to retailer operations “to guard you and our enterprise”.
“There is no such thing as a want so that you can take any motion presently and if the scenario modifications, we’ll let you already know,” he stated.
The Data Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO), the UK’s knowledge watchdog, has been notified.
“Marks & Spencer plc has made us conscious of an incident and we’re assessing the data offered,” an ICO spokesperson advised the BBC.
M&S’ discover stated the agency was working to resolve some “restricted” delays to Click on and Gather orders.
It comes after some consumers complained over the weekend about varied points – together with being unable to make use of reward playing cards or vouchers in shops.
One particular person referred to as the problems a “complete failure for patrons” in a post on X.
“A easy message out to prospects to save lots of a journey would have labored a deal with,” they stated.
And one other stated they had been unable to pay for clothes using a gift card whereas buying at a M&S retailer in Liverpool.
M&S has confirmed it’s nonetheless experiencing technical difficulties affecting its potential to course of reward playing cards, alongside Click on and Gather orders.
Daniel Card of the Chartered Institute for IT (BCS) stated the M&S incident was “a reminder of the hole that usually exists between our notion of cyber resilience and the fact”.
“Even well-resourced organisations aren’t immune, which underlines the significance of motion at each degree,” he stated.
He stated whereas this may increasingly really feel daunting for some smaller organisations, many widespread vulnerabilities “will be addressed by means of sensible, proportionate steps”.
These could embody securing units and e mail accounts to guard from focused makes an attempt to compromise an individual or enterprise.
That is simply the newest in a sequence of IT issues to hit main excessive road names.
Morrisons experienced significant problems with their Christmas orders final yr, with deliveries cancelled and reductions not utilized on the most important grocery buying day of the yr.
This was adopted by two main outages on what was pay day for a lot of within the first two months of this yr.
And in January, critical IT issues at Barclays affected the bank’s app and online banking.
It was later disclosed the agency might face compensation funds of £12.5m.
In February, a number of banks – notably Lloyds – confronted outages, leaving businesses unable to pay staff.
Further reporting by Chris Vallance
