Co-op diverting supplies to rural areas as it battles cyber-attack triggered shortages

The retailer, which runs some 2,500 stores in the UK, is prioritising the supply of essential products to shops on islands in isolated, rural communities, according to The Telegraph.

It follows reports that some remote stores were running increasingly low on food supplies, in the wake of the ongoing cyber attack that has forced The Co-op to switch off systems and has left the business struggling to manage deliveries from suppliers.

Suppliers have told The Telegraph they’ve been told to cancel deliveries to warehouses in recent days, as it battles businesses with its Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system, which it uses to manage and maintain stock levels.

These issues have led to availability issues in some stores, with shortages on items such as loo roll, milk and some vegetables.

It emerged over the weekend that the cyber attack on the Co-op was more significant than had previously been acknowledged by the business.

The hackers, who contacted the BBC over the weekend, had evidence that they had penetrated IT systems and extracted substantial volumes of customer and employee information.

Co-op acknowledged that hackers had “accessed data relating to a significant number of our current and past members.” This contradicts earlier statements that it had implemented “proactive measures” against hackers, operations were only experiencing “small impact” and that there was “no evidence that customer data was compromised”.

The hackers claim to possess personal information of 20 million Co-op membership programme participants, though the company has not verified this figure. DragonForce also claimed responsibility for the ongoing Marks & Spencer attack and an attempted breach at Harrods.

These incidents prompted government minister Pat McFadden to urge companies to prioritise cyber security measures.