Marks & Spencer CEO responds to cyber incident

Marks & Spencer CEO Stuart Machin has addressed a cyber incident that hit the high street giant over the bank holiday.

The department store chain has posted a statement on Instagram, acknowledging the incident and the impact to its operations.

"I'm writing to you to let you know that over the last few days Marks & Spencer has been managing a cyber incident. To protect you and the business, it was necessary to temporarily make some small changes to our store operations, and I am sincerely sorry if you experienced any inconvenience," reads the statement from Machin.

The exact cause of the technical issues has not been disclosed, but Marks & Spencer said its teams were working to restore full functionality.

Its stores remain open, with its website and app operating as normal. However, the retailer warned that there may still be some limited delays to click and collect orders, which it is "working to resolve".

"We have been working hard with the best experts to manage this, and I want to thank them and my colleagues for their work," added Machin, whilst expressing gratitude to customers for their continued support.

The incident began on Monday with contactless payments and click and collect orders affected in stores. However, there was a separate technical problem on Saturday, which only affected contactless payments.

The company is taking actions to protect its network and has also reported the incident to data protection supervisory authorities and the National Cyber Security Centre.

Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Adviser at internet security firm Eset, said: "This highlights the significant impact cyber attacks can have in the public domain.

"Many ransomware attacks are dealt with behind the scenes which can make people think the problems are eroding but when customers are directly affected, the knock-on effects are far more widely noted.

"Luckily, it seems no customer data has been taken in the attack but this situation widens the reality that card-only payments may not yet be the answer in a time when cyber attacks are just as prevalent as they’ve ever been."