Harrods hit by cyber attack amid wave of retailer hacking incidents

Harrods has become the latest high-profile UK retailer to fall victim to a cyber attack amid a wave of hacking incidents.

The luxury London department store said it had restricted internet access across its sites on Thursday as a precautionary measure following an attempt to gain unauthorised access to its systems.

In a statement, a Harrods spokesperson said: “We recently experienced attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems.

“Our seasoned IT security team immediately took proactive steps to keep systems safe, and as a result, we have restricted internet access at our sites today.

“Currently, all sites including our Knightsbridge store, H beauty stores and airport stores remain open to welcome customers.

“Customers can also continue to shop via harrods.com.

“We are not asking our customers to do anything differently at this point, and we will continue to provide updates as necessary.”

Harrods is the third major retailer in recent days to be targeted, following a serious ransomware attack on Marks & Spencer that has forced the company to suspend online orders and halt all recruitment.

M&S confirmed on Thursday it had taken down all job adverts from its careers website while it dealt with the fallout.

A message on the site told prospective applicants: “Sorry you can’t search or apply for roles right now, we’re working hard to be back online as soon as possible.”

A spokeswoman for the company said: “While we proactively manage the cyber incident, we are temporarily pausing some of our normal processes so we can continue to work hard on offering the best M&S for our customers and colleagues.

“Job adverts will be up again in due course.”

The London-based retailer employs about 65,000 people and has seen its operations disrupted since the Easter weekend.

Contactless payments were affected, and click-and-collect services halted, though contactless has since been restored.

Meanwhile, the Co-op Group has also been affected by an attempted hack, prompting it to shut down parts of its IT infrastructure.

While its shops and funeral services continue to trade, staff have reportedly been instructed to keep cameras on and verify identities during all remote meetings.

The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into the attack on M&S.