When Asos customers were sent a cryptically-worded push notification on Tuesday last week, some shoppers thought they were being hawked the fast fashion retailer’s new Christmas collection.
One thought the alert was “some crappy marketing scheme to get me to check the app and to view their snowflake collection,” they wrote on X. The notification was in fact a direct threat to Asos’s management, threatening to leak information belonging to the company’s millions of customers.
The hackers say they gained access to Asos’s servers on Snowflake, a cloud platform service which allows retailers to store basic customer information and send push notifications.
Asos has tried to reassure customers that no payment information was stolen and that the app remains safe to use, but the group behind the incident have claimed the data breach was worse than the London-listed company is making out.
Days later, high street retailer H&M said it was investigating claims that Shinyhunters, a global criminal hacking group which is currently being pursued by the FBI, had hacked into its servers.
The Foschini Group (TFG), the Johannesburg-listed retail group which owns fashion brands like White Stuff, said on Tuesday that it was aware of a “cybersecurity incident” at its London business.
The firm said the IT systems and websites of some of its brands – including Phase Eight, Hobbs and Whistles – were impacted, adding that there was “no reason to believe that payment information is at risk”.
‘Unprecedented’ attack on French grocers
On the continent, Dutch supermarket chain Ahold Delhaize was forced to shut down several systems following a “security issue” on its network.
Separately, fridges at a number of French supermarket chains were hit with a hack which forced them to warm up to as high as 50C, spoiling fresh and frozen food said to be worth millions of euros.
Dominique Schelcher, chief executive of grocery chain Coopérative U, said the incident “is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented”.
Tech experts said this attack is of particular concern because they suggest that future cyber incidents could threaten food security.
“Hackers don’t need to get into the tills to cause havoc in a supermarket,” said Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at online services provider NordVPN.
“Interfere with the equipment keeping food cold and you can force stores to throw away valuable stock, shut entire aisles and leave shoppers facing empty fridges and freezers. A cyberattack can quickly become a food safety problem, as well as a very expensive one for retailers.”
This latest wave of retail cyber attacks comes less than two years after Co-op, Marks and Spencer and Harrods were hit with data breaches in spring of last year. These retailers are still recovering, with Co-op saying the incident cost it £206m in revenue.
Tesco ‘constantly vigilant’
Retailers are keen to ensure that they are not the next target. Aim-listed toys and crafts seller The Works contacted its staff the day after the Asos breach to remind them to be vigilant for attempts, it is understood.
Speaking in the days following the attack, Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy said the supermarket was watching the Asos incident closely in the hopes of learning how to avoid being the next victim.
He said: “We invest very, very heavily in cybersecurity. It’s something we take exceptionally seriously for obvious reasons. We’re constantly vigilant.”
Murphy added that the UK’s biggest grocer was “staying up to date” with the latest prevention methods and updating its employees on how to avoid cyber attacks.
“We will obviously seek to learn from any incident, including the Asos incident, to make sure that we are staying on top of that,” he said.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said UK retailers spend hundreds of millions of pounds every year on their cyber defences. “Cyber-attacks are a very real risk for all businesses and are becoming increasingly sophisticated,” she said.
While FTSE 100 firms like Tesco can easily pile cash into shoring up their cyber defences with complex systems, cyber attacks often rely on old-fashioned human error.
Asos’s hackers gained access to its Snowflake systems by posing as a “trusted contact” of an employee to obtain their login information. The attacks on M&S and Co-op began in a similar way, as IT workers were tricked into giving away their credentials.
Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said this latest wave of cyber attacks will serve as a “brutal alarm call” for retailers.
“Retailers are particularly attractive targets, sitting on valuable customer data and relying on interconnected systems to keep everything from online orders to supply chains moving,” she said.
“The consequences of a breach can stretch far beyond stolen information, hitting sales, disrupting operations and eroding customer trust.”