Marks & Spencer, the United Kingdom retailer, was forced to shut down for two hours Tuesday night when the site inexplicably began revealing customer data to visitors of the site.
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Marks & Spencer made its website temporarily unavailable last night after what it claimed was “a technical issue”.
The high street retailer has since promised that no financial data was exposed and that the information that a few customers saw on the website was in fact the result of a “technical issue”.
The firm said it pulled the plug on the website “to thoroughly investigate and resolve the issue and quickly restore service”. The telecoms company suffered a cyber-attack that put over four million customers’ details at risk.
“We weren’t hacked by a third party”. Their name, address, telephone number, date of birth and what they have previously ordered. “We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused”, M&S said in a statement.
Earlier this month M&S launched a new members club and card scheme called “Sparks” which requires customers to register online.
It’s unclear how long the website was offline but it appears to be back up and running as normal now. However, the breach comes under the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) could impose a fine of up to £500,000, if the glitch resurfaces.
Did you catch a glimpse of someone else’s details on the Marks & Spencer website?
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A 15-year-old boy in Northern Ireland has been arrested in relation to the hack and TalkTalk’s share prices are down to 249.90, compared to 268.50 before news broke of the security breach.
