Harrods Cyber Attack Follows Co-op and M&S Breaches: What You Need to Know

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Harrods has become the most recent retailer to be targeted in this trend.
a series of breaches carried out by cyber attackers
.

On Thursday afternoon, the department store located in Knightsbridge, West London, was attempting
to fend off the online attack
, which comes after comparable cyber-attacks on various big-name stores.

M&S and the
Co-ops have recently experienced assaults.
, and continue to face challenges with operational disruptions.

Read Next:
“An entire season impacted”: The significant blow from the M&S cyberattack and future steps.

The specifics regarding the Harrods incident, along with the ongoing disrupted services, remained vague.

Harrods stated in an announcement: “Recently, we encountered efforts to unauthorizedly penetrate certain of our systems. In response, our skilled IT security personnel promptly implemented preventive measures to safeguard these systems. Consequently, we have limited internet accessibility across our premises today.”

At present, all locations such as our Knightsbridge outlet, H beauty shops, and airport branches stay open to serve clients. Shoppers can additionally browse products through harrods.com.

“At present, we’re not requesting any changes from our customers, and we’ll keep providing updates whenever needed.”

A series of cyberattacks

On Thursday, M&S stated that they were unable to recruit additional staff members due to the ongoing repercussions following the severe cyberattack. The company mentioned that they have removed all online employment listings from their site as technical specialists work towards fixing issues across their systems.

The message posted on the organization’s employment site stated: “We apologize but currently you cannot search for or submit applications for positions; we’re diligently working towards returning to normal operations as quickly as feasible.”

On Thursday, M&S did not have any job listings posted throughout its entire UK operation, even though they had over 200 positions available at the same point last week. The company employs roughly 65,000 individuals in their headquarters and retail locations.

A spokesperson for M&S said: “While we proactively manage the cyber incident, we are temporarily pausing some of our normal processes so we can continue to work hard on offering the best M&S for our customers and colleagues. Job adverts will be up again in due course.”

UK unprepared for potential Russian cyber assaults, say specialists

The UK government faces “a critically high risk” of
cyber attack
and cannot keep pace with the quickly changing dangers posed by adversarial nations.

Four high-ranking officials from the British Cabinet Office have stated that years of lack of action, insufficient funding, and difficulties in hiring personnel have left the country vulnerable to an increasing threat.
cyber warfare
from adversarial nations and global criminals.

In connection with a parliamentary investigation into the United Kingdom’s resilience, officials stated that government agencies are struggling due to outdated and insecure IT infrastructure along with insufficient knowledge on defending against cyber threats.

Bella Powell, who leads cybersecurity efforts for the Government Security Group (GSG), stated that the resilience levels throughout the UK were found to be “significantly below expectations,” with an increasing danger posed by adversarial nations like
Russia
and
China
had turned into “a significant danger”.

She stated: “In summary, we are currently facing a critical risk.”


Read the complete article by Richard Holmes
here

.

M&S continues to refrain from accepting online orders, and the availability of certain items in their physical stores has been impacted since they shut down some of their systems as a reaction to the attack.

The problems were initially noticed over the Easter weekend when it ceased accepting click-and-collect orders and experienced disruptions with contactless payments due to a “cyber incident.” Since then, they have resumed contactless payment services.

The Metropolitan Police stated on Wednesday that they are looking into a cyberattack.

During a distinct event, the Co-op disconnected portions of its IT infrastructure on Wednesday following a thwarted hacking attempt. The company stated that certain back-office functions and call center operations were impacted; however, all outlets, such as grocery stores and funeral homes, continued their regular business activities without disruption.