Supermarket chain Spinneys targeted by hackers

Hackers targeted supermarket company Spinneys, which led to a Saturday delay in the opening of its network of stores in the United Arab Emirates. According to Tom Harvey, general manager of Spinneys Dubai, “Hackers were able to access a portion of the Spinneys’ network, disrupting a portion of our shop operations for a brief amount of time.” “The issue has been dealt with swiftly.”

No customer data was accessed in the attack as this is contained securely in a separate system that was not breached, Mr Harvey said.

“We are very grateful to our customers for their patience and apologise if anyone was inconvenienced while shopping in our stores at the time of the hack.”

As more businesses adopt hybrid work models and undergo rapid digital transformation to cope with coronavirus challenges, they are also more exposed to cyber threats.

This has resulted in an increase in budget allocations towards thwarting potential security breaches.

More than 85 per cent of UAE businesses surveyed said their security budget has increased in the past year to address ransomware, compared with 92 per cent globally, Boston-based security firm Cybereason said in its annual ransomware study.

Cyber criminals are expected to attack a business, consumer or device every two seconds by 2031, according to New York-based research company Cybersecurity Ventures.

It said ransomware damages cost the world about $20 billion, which is 57 times more than in 2015 at $325 million.

The company predicts ransomware will cost its victims about $265bn by 2031.

Customers in the UAE took to Twitter to post about Spinneys’ store closures. They reported that many Spinneys stores were closed due to “technical issues” or “system errors” on Saturday morning.

Another Twitter user said the Spinneys app was not working, with no products showing up.