tech · security
a supermarket giant pulled its own plug, and is still plugging back in
nine days after switching systems off to fight intruders in its network, ahold delhaize, the company behind albert heijn and stop & shop, is bringing its apps and deliveries back one brand at a time.
where the shutdown reached
netherlands. albert heijn, etos, gall & gall. sites back, home delivery due friday.
- netherlands: albert heijn, etos, gall & gall. sites back, home delivery due friday.
- belgium: delhaize. online shopping fully back.
- united states: stop & shop and sister brands. online shopping still down.
- central europe: most sites and apps back.
on 12 october ahold delhaize said it had found a security problem on its network and switched off a long list of systems on purpose, including the websites and apps for most of its brands in europe and the united states. the shops stayed open. a week later it confirmed what that problem was: attackers inside its it.
taking yourself offline is the standard first move against an intruder, because it stops them spreading while you find out how far they got. the cost is that customers see an outage, not an attack. the company has still not said whether anything was encrypted or copied, only that it has found no sign so far that personal data left. it told the dutch ncscthe national cyber security centre, the dutch government body that companies report serious hacks to. within a day and filed a police report on 19 october.
12 oct
systems taken offline
stores stay open
13 oct
no sign of stolen customer data, it says
19 oct
attackers confirmed, police report filed
23 oct
albert heijn deliveries due back
coming days
us online shopping due back
pick one
the same week, an attack in france did what to hundreds of shops?
what to watch: whether the investigation’s “no sign so far” holds, and whether the company ever says how the attackers got in. so far it has only said what it switched back on.
sources
- update on status of cybersecurity incident · ahold delhaizeprimary
- ahold has no indication client data was stolen in cybersecurity incident · reuters