The Co-op fights attempted hack as M&S cyber attack rages on
The Co-op has been forced to shut off parts of its IT systems after it was confronted with an attempted hack.
The Manchester-headquartered group has confirmed some of its back office and call centre services have been impacted.
However, it added that all its stores, including grocery and funeral homes are trading as usual.
A Co-op spokesman 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 our systems safe, which has resulted in a small impact to some of our back office and call centre services.
“We are not asking our members or customers to do anything differently at this point. We will continue to provide updates as necessary.”
The business owns more than 2,000 grocery stores and 800 funeral parlours across the UK.
The Co-op faces hack attempt as M&S battle continues
It comes as rival Marks & Spencer (M&S) continues to deal with the lengthy fallout from a major cyber incident.
Yesterday, City PM reported that shares M&S had started to rise for the first time since a cyber attack wiped almost £700m off the FTSE 100 retailer’s valuation.
M&S saw its share price tumble from 411p to 383p in the last week after first revealing the cyber attack last week.
The cyber attack initially impacted contactless payments and click and collect orders.
On Friday, M&S announced that it stopped taking orders through its website and app.
The company added that some of its international websites had also paused taking orders.
M&S told some customers yesterday that it did not know how long it would take to start taking orders online again.
It is not known whether the hacks of the two retailers are related.