(Zero Hedge)—Fashion giant Victoria’s Secret & Co. has halted certain office operations and told employees to avoid using company technology amid a “security incident” that has caused the company to take their e-commerce and some store services offline.
Employees were locked out of email accounts on Wednesday, a ‘person familiar with the situation’ told Bloomberg Thursday. Shares of the company fell 6.9% (Beavis) on Wednesday.
“Recovery is going to take awhile,” said CEO Hillary Super in a note seen by Bloomberg, which adds that customer care operations and some distribution center operations had been halted.
The incident comes on the heels of yet another retailer – Adidas AG – which said that customer data was stolen by a third-party service provider, which included the contact information of anyone who had emailed the German company’s customer service help desk.
As Bloomberg continues;
In addition, several UK retailers announced breaches in recent weeks. Marks & Spencer Plc said it is facing a £300 million ($403 million) hit to operating profit from a cyberattack that disrupted sales and operations. The hackers were able to breach M&S’s systems via human error at a third party, the company said. The UK supermarket chain Co-op said intruders were able to access and extract customer data during a recent cyberattack, while luxury department store Harrods Ltd. disclosed that it had suffered attempts to compromise its systems.
A hacking group called DragonForce claimed responsibility for the UK attacks – which came after investor BBRC International Pte Limited increased its stake in Victoria’s Secret – causing the company to adopt a poison pill strategy.