Co-op Boss Apologises After Retailer Hit by "Highly Sophisticated" Hackers

The Co-operative Group, one of the UK's largest retailers, has apologized to customers after its IT systems were compromised by highly sophisticated hackers. The cyber attack has caused significant disruption to the business, with some stores unable to take card payments and others experiencing empty shelves.

A Message from the CEO

The company's chief executive, Shirine Khoury-Haq, has issued a statement apologizing for the disruption and promising that the organization is doing everything it can to restore normal operations. In an email sent to customers on Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Khoury-Haq acknowledged that "actively managing the severity of the attack" had meant shutting down some systems to protect the business.

"As previously communicated, we have established that the cyber criminals were able to access a limited amount of member data," she said. "This is obviously extremely distressing for our colleagues and members, and I am very sorry this happened."

The Full Extent of the Disruption

Customers reported on Tuesday that three stores in Manchester had signs indicating that they were "cash only" as their card machines were offline. Contactless payments have also been affected in a small number of stores, with the group working to get normal systems restored.

The Co-op has approximately 2,300 stores across the UK, and while the vast majority are still taking usual forms of payment, some customers have reported empty shelves in their local store. The retailer is working around the clock to reduce disruption and resume deliveries.

A Previous Apology

Last week, the Co-op apologized that hackers had extracted members' personal data such as names and contact details from its IT systems. It said it had to shut down parts of its IT systems after experiencing "sustained malicious attempts" to access its systems.

Rival Retailer M&S Still Dealing with Disruption

Marks & Spencer, a rival retailer, is continuing to deal with disruption caused by its own recent cyber incident. The firm has reportedly been unable to offer some meal deal offers in some of its stores after products availability was impacted.

An M&S spokesman said: "Customers can still buy meal deals in our rail station stores but there are pockets of availability for some items. We are working hard to continue getting our products into stores."

A Message from the Co-op

"We would like to thank our colleagues, members, customers and suppliers for their understanding during this time," said a Co-op spokesman. "This means that some of our stores might not have all of their usual products available and we would like to say sorry to our members and customers if this is the case in their local store."