Some 11,000 Starbucks stores in North America have been hit by a ransomware attack on one of its largest IT providers. Two UK supermarket chains have also been affected by the security breach, and car-maker Ford says it is trying to determine whether its own operations have been affected …
The WSJ reports that the attack was carried out against Blue Yonder, a major IT services company with a blue-chip client base.
Coffee addicts will be relieved to know that the attack has not disrupted sales at the stores, as only backend processes have been hit.
Starbucks said Monday the ransomware attack affected company-owned stores in its network of around 11,000 sites in North America. It disrupted the coffee chain’s ability to pay baristas and manage their schedules, leaving cafe managers to manually calculate employees’ pay.
Starbucks for now is paying employees for their scheduled shifts, meaning they could be overpaid or underpaid depending on the hours actually worked. The company said it would ensure baristas are eventually paid for all hours worked.
British supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have also been hit.
Morrisons, which has about 1,600 convenience stores and 500 supermarkets across the U.K., said the outage affected its warehouse management systems for fresh foods and produce. “We are currently operating satisfactorily on our backup systems and we’re working very hard to deliver for our customers across the country,” a spokesperson for Morrisons said.
Sainsbury’s, which has 600 supermarkets and more than 800 convenience stores across the U.K., said it is in “close contact” with Blue Yonder and has put contingency processes in place.
Ford said that it too is a Blue Yonder client, but isn’t yet sure whether its own operations have been affected.
Photo by Aral Tasher on Unsplash
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