M&S online services to face disruption until July

- Advertisement -spot_imgspot_img
- Advertisement -spot_imgspot_img

Marks & Spencer has said its online services will continue to be disrupted until July due to last month’s cyber-attack.

Customers have been unable to order online for the past three weeks.

“We expect online disruption to continue throughout June and into July as we restart, then ramp up operations,” the retailer said.

It estimates that the cyber-attack will reduce profits for the current year by around £300m – which is more than analysts had expected the equivalent of a 30% hit to profits.

“Over the last few weeks, we have been managing a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber-attack, which has led to a limited period of disruption,” said M&S chief executive Stuart Machin.

“There is no change to our strategy and our longer-term plans to reshape M&S for growth and, if anything, the incident allows us to accelerate the pace of change as we draw a line and move on,” he added.

The cyber-attack took place over the Easter weekend, initially affecting click-and-collect and contactless payments. A few days later M&S put a banner on its website apologising that online ordering was not available.

The ransomware attack is thought to have been the work of a loose collective of online actors known as Scattered Spider, using illicit tools from the cyber-crime service DragonForce.

M&S reported a rise in profits and sales in the year that ended in March, just before the hack disrupted services at the end of April.

Profit before tax and adjusting items was up 22% to £875m, while sales rose 6.1%.

Mr Machin said the turnaround strategy that he started three years ago had put M&S in it “best financial health for nearly 30 years”.

- Advertisement -spot_imgspot_img
Latest news
- Advertisement -spot_img
Related news
- Advertisement -spot_img