The Co-op was the latest victim of an attempted cyber attack, a letter to staff has revealed. The firm was forced to shut down some of its IT services just days after M&S faced a serious incident of a similar nature. Despite all of its more than 2,000 stores and funeral services running as normal, the company was forced to send a letter to all staff, seen by the Guardian, revealing more details about the incident.
According to a source, the shutdown has caused the closure of virtual desktops across the business, impacting a number of the behind-the-scenes operations that involve head office support such as updates on stock.
However, the letter sent on Tuesday states the company had “taken steps to keep systems safe” and so “pre-emtively withdrawn access to some systems for the moment”.
A spokeperson said: “We have recently experienced attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems. As a result, we have taken proactive steps to keep out systems safe, which has resulted in a small impact to some of our back office and call centre services.
“We are working hard to reduce any distruption to our services and would like to thank our colleagues. members, partners and suppliers for their understanding during this period.”
It is suggested that customer data as not been accessed as the company said it was “not asking our members or customers to do anything difficult at this point.”
The Co-op will also “continue to provide updates as necessary.”
The attempted attack comes after M&S facees major issues caused by a cyber incident connected to the hacking collective Scattered Spider.
The Co-op have not revealed whether the company had the dectection was part of extra checks sparked by the M&S incident. Yet, the company has informed staff that “protecting our systems is of paramount importance”, referring to “the recent issues surrounding M&S and the cyber-attack they have experience”.