Tesco suffers downtime following cyber-attack

Following downtime to both online and mobile platforms, Tesco has now restored all functionality and has confirmed service issues were as a result of a cyber-attack. 

The downtime posed major issues for customers who could not access services to place orders, change deliveries or complete cancellations.  

Speaking to the BBC, a customer reported his experience with the downtime and its impact upon his click and collect order, 

 "The collection member of staff hadn't been informed of any issues […] after I showed him the website, he said it was an unusually quiet day. I asked if I could reject the whole order and was informed, I could only reject substituted items. Nothing from Tesco, no way of contacting them. Really poor by Tesco.” 

Chris, from Stoke, was just one of many customers affected by the issue, with a mass outcry for refund circulating twitter over the weekend after people were left with wrong or incomplete orders. 

At 9am on the 23rd, Tesco did tweet out from the official company page saying “We’re experiencing an issue with our website and app and are working hard to get things back up and running. We apologize for any inconvenience.” At the time, there was no mention of the cyber-attack, and many assumed the downtime to be a result of maintenance or administrative errors. 

In the succeeding days, Tesco has now confirmed the organization was the victim of an attempted hack. 

On Sunday morning, a spokesperson is quoted as saying  

"Since yesterday, we've been experiencing disruption to our online grocery website and app. 

"An attempt was made to interfere with our systems which has caused problems with the search function on the site. We're working hard to fully restore all services and apologize for the inconvenience." 

The repercussions of the incident remain undisclosed, with many customers fearing the hack has potentially exposed their sensitive data records. 

Addressing these concerns, a Tesco spokesperson said "There is no reason to believe that this issue impacts customer data and we continue to take ongoing action to make sure all data stays safe.” 

The platforms are now back online and business is resuming normality, following the use of virtual waiting room being put into place to ensure everything re-launched without an overload of traffic.  

With the increasing need for online grocery shopping as a direct result of the pandemic, it comes as no surprise that threat actors are targeting Britain’s biggest supermarket. Whilst this downtime was only over the weekend, it still disrupted the plans and lives of countless people around the country, highlighting the necessity for all major organizations to ensure their cybersecurity posture is strong, and the effects that cyber vulnerabilities can have nationwide.