LONDON (AP) — British retailer Marks & Spencer said Friday that it's “working day and night” to resolve a cyberattack nearly two weeks ago that has left it unable to process any online orders, a day after luxury London department store Harrods confirmed it had become the latest target.
With Co-op also having shut down some of its information technology systems as a precaution following a hack, there are growing concerns within the retail sector that hackers are taking calculated risks by trying to replicate the actions of others to cause as much disruption as they can.
According to reports, a hacking group known as Scattered Spider is said to be behind the M&S attack, although this hasn't been confirmed. It remains unclear if the three attacks are linked.
So far, M&S has been the most high-profile victim of the recent spate of attacks, and its chief executive Stuart Machin told customers that he is “really sorry” about the disruption.
“We are working day and night to manage the current cyber incident and get things back to normal for you as quickly as possible," he said.
M&S first reported the issue over the Easter weekend two weeks ago and has seen its operations impacted for more than a week. Initially, the company saw contactless payments and click and collect orders affected, though contactless has since been restored.
Last Friday, it also said it would no longer be able to take orders through its website or app in order to deal with the problem. And the company, which has around 65,000 employees, has been unable to hire new workers after pulling job postings from its website.
London's Metropolitan Police force has launched an investigation into the attack on M&S.
M&S's latest update comes a day after Harrods said it had restricted internet access across its sites as a precautionary measure following an attempt to gain unauthorized access to its systems.
“We are not asking our customers to do anything differently at this point, and we will continue to provide updates as necessary," Harrods said in a statement.
“Coming on the heels of recent breaches at Co-op and M&S, it highlights an alarming trend," said Cody Barrow, chief executive of cybersecurity experts EclecticIQ. “The flurry of attacks showed cybercriminals are becoming bolder, exploiting weaknesses across complex, highly interconnected supply chains.”
Experts are saying that generative artificial intelligence is accelerating the threat landscape, and that firms and individuals have to stay on top of developments and shore up their defenses against cyberattacks.
The U.K. National Cyber Security Centre said that it was working with organizations affected as well as providing expert advice to others in the sector.
“These incidents should act as a wake-up call to all organizations," agency CEO Richard Horne said.
FILE - A bus passes a branch of Marks and Spencer in London, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, file)
FILE - A doorman wearing a mask outside Harrods department store opens the door for customers in London, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, file)
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of New York City nurses returned to the picket lines Tuesday as their strike targeting some of the city’s leading hospital systems entered its second day.
Union officials say roughly 15,000 nurses walked off the job Monday morning at multiple campuses of three hospital systems: NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai.
The affected hospitals have hired droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap. Both nurses and hospital administrators have urged patients not to avoid getting care during the strike.
New York City, like the U.S. as a whole, has had an active flu season. The city logged over 32,000 cases during the week ending Dec. 20 — the highest one-week tally in at least 20 years — though numbers have since declined, the Health Department said last Thursday.
Roy Permaul, an intensive care unit nurse who was among those picketing in front of Mount Sinai's flagship campus in Manhattan, said he and his colleagues are prepared to walk off the job as long as needed to secure a better contract.
But Dania Munoz, a nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, stressed that the union’s fight wasn’t just about better wages.
“We deserve fair pay, but this is about safety for our patients, for ourselves and for our profession,” the 31-year-old Bronx resident said. “The things that we’re fighting for, we need. We need health care. We need safety. We need more staffing.”
The New York State Nurses Association said Tuesday that none of the hospitals have agreed to additional bargaining sessions with the union since their last meetings on Sunday.
It also complained that Mount Sinai, which operates seven hospitals, unlawfully fired three nurses hours after the strike started and improperly disciplined 14 others who had spoken out about workplace violence or discussed the union and contract negotiations with their colleagues.
Mount Sinai spokespersons said Tuesday the claims were “not accurate” and that they would provide more information later. Mt. Sinai has said approximately 20% of its nurses reported for work on the first day of the strike rather than picketing.
Meanwhile, Montefiore Medical Center said it has “not canceled even one patient’s access to care” during the work stoppage. The city Emergency Management Department said it hasn’t seen major impacts to patient care so far.
The hospital system also criticized unionized nurses for seeking “troubling proposals” such as demanding that nurses not be terminated, even if found to be compromised by drugs or alcohol while on the job.
The union said Montefiore was “blatantly mischaracterizing” one of its basic workplace proposals, which would have added protections for nurses dealing with substance use disorders and which has already been adopted in other hospitals around the state.
The labor action comes three years after a similar strike forced medical facilities to transfer some patients and divert ambulances.
As with the 2023 labor action, nurses have pointed to staffing issues as a major flashpoint, accusing the big-budget medical centers of refusing to commit to provisions for safe, manageable workloads.
The private, nonprofit hospitals involved in the current negotiations say they’ve made strides in staffing in recent years and have cast the union’s demands as prohibitively expensive.
On Monday, the city's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, stood beside nurses on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian, praising the union’s members for seeking “dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve.”
Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Nurses strike outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
