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A cyber attack that hit US office supply retail chain Staples has disrupted its delivery and customer support services.
The attack was announced by the retail giant late last week, which said that it had shut down some of its IT systems.
“Staples recently identified a cyber security risk [and] took proactive steps in an effort to mitigate the impact and protect customer data,” the company said in a statement.
“Our prompt efforts caused temporary disruption to the staples.com processing and delivering capabilities, as well as to our communications channels and customer service lines.
“We apologise for the inconvenience, and rest assured, all of our systems are in the process of being restored.
“We expect to return to full functionality in short order.”
According to Staples employees on Reddit, a number of services were taken down, affecting both on-site and remote employees.
“It’s not just email. I’m a remote employee and all of the systems are down. Can’t get onto the VPN, or teams, or any our usual systems,” said one staffer on Reddit.
“Even the customer service and HR phone systems are down.
“Can’t get into outlook or teams from a different device like I’m usually able to as well.”
According to one employee, staff were being told by supervisors to take the day off and come back later when the systems had returned to normal.
“I work in the call centre and everything is still down for us. This is crazy. I’ve never experienced anything happen like this while working with Staples as long as I have,” said another employee.
Despite the cyber attack, Staples has reiterated that its physical stores and operations remain as normal, meaning customers are able to get what they need. Those after delivery orders will face delays though.
The fact that multiple systems were affected indicates a potential ransomware attack. That being said, there is nothing to confirm this, nor has any threat actor come forward.
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