M&S stops online orders and issues refunds after 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 dealing with a “cyber incident”.

Now, M&S has solely paused orders on its web site and apps – together with for meals deliveries and garments – and says it is going to refund orders positioned by clients on Friday.

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

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

“Our skilled crew – supported by main cyber consultants – is working extraordinarily onerous to restart on-line and app purchasing.

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

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

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

Because it suspended on-line ordering, M&S has responded to social media posts advising clients 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.

However it instructed one other that if individuals have already acquired an e mail telling them an merchandise is able to be collected, they need to be capable of go into the shop and choose it up.

“We’re holding all parcels in retailer till additional discover, so there is no threat of it being despatched again,” it said.

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

“After being instructed 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 stated it was the fourth day in a row that they had tried and failed to make use of their M&S reward card.

In the meantime regardless of the frustrations, some individuals on-line have praised in-store workers 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 current purchases, orders and returns shall be impacted by the continued fallout from the cyber assault.

A spokesperson from the Info Commissioner’s Workplace instructed the BBC M&S it was “assessing the knowledge supplied” after M&S instructed it concerning the incident.

The agency beforehand stated 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 buyers on Friday, M&S stated its determination to pause on-line orders within the UK fashioned a part of its “proactive administration” of the incident.

“The M&S crew – supported by main consultants – is working extraordinarily onerous to revive on-line operations and proceed to serve clients nicely,” it stated.

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

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

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

And William Wright from cybersecurity agency Closed Door Safety stated he believed it may have a “materials affect” on the agency.

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

The retailer is the most recent main identify to expertise vital disruption to its on-line companies in current months.

Morrisons confronted large 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.

Further reporting by Liv McMahon