SPAR shops in northern England face severe operational problems following a cyberattack, urging many stores to close or switch to cash-only payments.
- Around 300 SPAR stores shut down due to a cyber attack.
- The cyberattack impacted all of the company's IT staff without access to emails.
- The nature of the attack is not disclosed yet.
SPAR shops in northern England face severe operational problems following a cyberattack, urging many stores to close or switch to cash-only payments.
SPAR has around 2,600 shops in the UK and, according to its website, £3 billion in annual turnover.
Although not all have closed, more than 300 stores have been affected by the attack.
Those that remain open are only accepting cash due to debit and credit card payments not operating.
The cyberattack had impacted all of its IT systems and left staff without access to emails.
Lawrence Hunt & Co Ltd, which operates 25 branches across Lancashire, confirmed that the outage affected tills, credit cards and back-office systems across the SPAR network.
James Hall and Co, a Preston-based food distributor who sends goods to nearly 600 SPAR stores in Lancashire, is also affected by the attack
“It is currently impacting stores’ ability to process card payments meaning that a number of SPAR stores are currently closed to shoppers or only taking cash payments.“
“We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing our customers, and we are working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.”
A spokesperson for the UK's National Cyber Security Centre said that "we are aware of an issue affecting Spar stores and are working with partners to fully understand the incident.”
For the latest cyber threats and the latest hacking news please follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
You may be interested in reading: How to Survive the COVID Time Cyber Security Threats?