Grocery chain Tesco suffers two-day outage following hack
British grocery shoppers have had more than a few headaches this weekend. According to The Guardian, the grocery chain Tesco has grappled with a roughly two-day outage (as of this writing) preventing customers from placing or modifying orders through either the company’s website or its mobile app. The company pinned the incident on hacks affecting searches, although it didn’t say much beyond noting the intruders tried to “interfere with our systems.”
The company didn’t have an estimated time frame for a fix, and didn’t identify the potential culprits. However, it said there was “no reason to believe” the cyberattack affected customer data.
This isn’t the first time Tesco has suffered hacks. A 2014 breach led it to disable accounts after intruders shared more than 2,000 users’ login details. In 2016, an attack on Tesco’s banking lost about £2.5 million (worth $3.4 million today).
Whoever was responsible, the incident further highlights the vulnerability of food supply chains to cyberattacks. Meat supplier JBS was one of the most prominent victims after it fell prey to ransomware, but grocery stores themselves are also at risk of disruptions that could limit deliveries and otherwise stop meals from reaching your table.
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