Sat, 17 May 2025

Sat, 17 May 2025 M&S hackers believed to have gained access through third party

The retailer has been struggling to get its services back to normal after a cyber-attack in April.
M&S suffered a devastating cyber-attack in April, with hackers gaining access through a third-party who had access to its systems. The attack has caused significant losses for the retailer, with millions of pounds in lost sales and online orders paused for over three weeks. The hackers, known as DragonForce, previously claimed responsibility for the attack on M&S, as well as another hack on Co-op and an attempted hack on Harrods. Analysts estimate that M&S has lost over £40m in sales every week since the incident began, with the retailer announcing its annual results on Wednesday. M&S took down many of its IT operations following the attack to prevent further damage, locking itself out of core systems. The biggest challenge is getting its online system fully operational again, which accounts for around a third of its clothing and homeware sales. The cyber-attack resulted in some personal customer data being stolen, including names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, household information, and online order histories. However, card information was not compromised as the retailer does not hold full payment details on its systems. The Co-op, which was also targeted by DragonForce, reported that it shut down parts of its IT systems in response to the attack, causing payment problems and widespread shortages of goods in shops. Customers may see stocks return to normal levels over the weekend. M&S has announced that stores are now well-stocked, with availability returning to a more normal place.
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