LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Co-op Group said on Wednesday hackers had attempted to break into its systems, forcing the retailer to shut down some of its back office and call centre operations.
The incident follows a major cyber attack on Marks & Spencer, one of Britain’s best known retailers, which has resulted in it pausing taking clothing and home orders through its website and app for the last six days.
The Co-op, which is owned by its members and trades from over 2,300 food stores across the UK and also has funeral care, legal and insurance businesses, said all its stores, e-commerce operations and funeral homes are trading as usual.
“We have recently experienced attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems,” said a spokesperson for the Co-op.
“As a result, we have taken proactive steps to keep our systems safe, which has resulted in a small impact to some of our back office and call centre services.”
The spokesperson said the group was working to reduce any disruption to its services and had not asked its members or customers to do anything differently.
They added that the Co-op was working with the National Cyber Security Centre but declined to say if the police were involved.
(Reporting by James Davey)
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