Multinational retailer Ahold Delhaize says cyber attack impacted its U.S. operations

Dutch-Belgian multinational retail and wholesale company, Ahold Delhaize, said it recently experienced a data security incident that affected its operations in the United States.

In a notification on its website, Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Food Lion, and Giant Food, said that its USA arm recently detected a cybersecurity issue that affected its internal network.

Following the discovery, the company launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident. Ahold Delhaize USA also notified relevant law enforcement authorities and is working with them to resolve the situation.

“Our teams are taking steps to assess and mitigate the issue. This includes taking some systems offline to help protect them. This issue and subsequent mitigating actions have affected certain Ahold Delhaize USA brands and services including a number of pharmacies and certain e-commerce operations,” reads the notice.

Hannaford’s official website has been replaced with a banner “We’re having technical issues with our servers. We’re working as quickly as possible to restore service.” The websites of Food Lion, Giant Food, The Giant Company, and Stop & Shop remain available and customers are able to place online orders.

“Each of Ahold Delhaize USA’s brands’ stores are open and serving customers. We will continue to take actions to further protect our systems. The security of our customers, associates and partners is a top priority,” the company added.

Ahold Delhaize USA is yet to provide details on who is behind the cyber attack, the nature and scope of the same or whether it has received a ransom demand. At the time of publishing, no known hacker group claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on the company.