Investors are expecting Marks & Spencer to provide information next week regarding the effects of a catastrophic cyberattack that has forced the retail behemoth to suspend all online orders. The company will give the stock market an update on its financial performance over the past year next week.
However, following weeks of disruption, the company’s coping mechanisms will be the main focus of attention. The retailer was first affected by a significant ‘cyber incident’ over a month ago, which was allegedly connected to the hacker collective Scattered Spider.
The business stopped accepting online orders for the past three weeks as a result, and click-and-collect payments and transactions were impacted.
In an update, M&S reported that while the outage affected availability in stores as well, leaving some shelves bare as it made changes to certain of its IT systems, this was rapidly improving.
Hackers stole customer personal information during the attack, including names, email addresses, postal addresses, and dates of birth.
Tens of millions of pounds in sales are thought to have been lost as a result of the incident, though the company has not yet revealed the whole cost. Analysts predict that as a result, shareholders will be anxiously awaiting the company’s guidance regarding current year revenues and profits.
