Stop & Shop, Hannaford online services disrupted after cybersecurity incident

Stop and Shop and Hannaford's online services were disrupted after a cybersecurity incident at their parent company. 22 News reporter Kaylee Thomas joins us live in studio with what local consumers need to know. Sarah, the stores remain open, but customers who rely on their online shopping have faced disruptions. For shoppers trying to order through Stop and Shop or Hannaford's website and app, a maintenance message has stood in the way. Their parent company, Ahold Delhaize, confirmed Monday it was dealing with a security issue within its network. and took some systems offline as precaution, but hasn't disclosed the cause. This cybersecurity expert tells 22 News this could be the result of a direct denial-of-service attack carried out by someone outside the company. They'll write programs and they'll write scripts that'll basically bombard the website with a ton of traffic, which basically doesn't allow the bandwidth for customers to access the site. Trask says if that's the case, the company will work to block that malicious traffic in looking at ways to rebuild affected systems. They're going to look back, whether that's hours, days, weeks, and they're going to try to restore from that point. Once they restore from that point, they'll be able to then reconstruct all of the lost data. The company faced a similar incident in 2024 that disrupted Hannaford's online shopping and potentially exposed sensitive information belonging to more than 2 million people. Trask says even companies with security measures can face repeated threats. Sometimes there's just things that are beyond their control. It could be anything from somebody sending an email with a bad link in it and somebody accidentally clicking on it. The extent of the current incident remains under investigation. In the meantime, both chains say they're working to restore service and any unfulfilled online orders will be refunded. It's also unknown if any customer or employee personal information was stolen or used. As a precaution, Trask recommends checking bank statements and credit reports. If you see something that is unusual, unauthorized, then call your bank immediately. Both chains say they're working to restore their websites and apps as quickly as possible. Working for you, Kelly Thomas, 22 News.