A different kind of war? Cyber attacks to decimate economies?

Marks & Spencer shoppers face empty shelves as the retailer grapples with the fallout from a crippling cyber attack that has lasted more than a week.
Customers complained of finding “completely empty” shelves in M&S food halls, with items including bananas, fish and Colin the Caterpillar cakes out of stock.
In one shop, The Telegraph saw signs displayed on hot food counters saying they were “temporarily closed.” It said: “Due to technical issues, we aren’t able to offer these products at the moment. We’re working hard to resolve the problem and will have these items back in stock as quickly as possible.”
When asked, staff claimed the supply issues were linked to a cyber attack by a criminal gang that began before Easter and has already forced M&S to stop online orders.
A spokesman for M&S said the decision to take some of its systems temporarily offline had resulted in “pockets of limited availability in some stores”, adding: “We are working hard to get availability back to normal across the estate.”

imaround

This was caused by vibrations in the line which interrupted the signals. It had absolutely nothing to do with there not being enough power being sent due to renewable.

"Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in very high volatge lines, something called 'induced atmospheric vibration'. These osculations cause synchronization failures between the electrical systems. It's a complex phenomenon and there is a need to rebalance electricity flows internationally, it could take a week to fix"

www.forexlive.com/news/induced-atmospheric-vibration-was-the-cause-of-the-spanish-power-outage-20250428/

It's not the amount of renewable power being sent, it's the difference in the method of sending it.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Marks & Spencer shoppers face empty shelves as the retailer grapples with the fallout from a crippling cyber attack that has lasted more than a week.
Customers complained of finding “completely empty” shelves in M&S food halls, with items including bananas, fish and Colin the Caterpillar cakes out of stock.
In one shop, The Telegraph saw signs displayed on hot food counters saying they were “temporarily closed.” It said: “Due to technical issues, we aren’t able to offer these products at the moment. We’re working hard to resolve the problem and will have these items back in stock as quickly as possible.”
When asked, staff claimed the supply issues were linked to a cyber attack by a criminal gang that began before Easter and has already forced M&S to stop online orders.
A spokesman for M&S said the decision to take some of its systems temporarily offline had resulted in “pockets of limited availability in some stores”, adding: “We are working hard to get availability back to normal across the estate.”

Not quite what I witnessed in our big M&S this morning but whichever paper you were quoting from presumably doesn't believe in letting the facts get in the way of a good story

Aside from M and S, which I know nothing about, I think you are right that there will be/ is cyber warfare. It is a lot cheaper ,easier and more widespread than having to risk peoples’ lives fighting in the old way. China is very advanced in technology and so are some of the other countries not exactly ‘friendly’ towards the west. Not sure what can be done except keeping abreast of the ways and means and back up strategies.

Tried to post a warning but GN refused. Msg me if you want info

The chaos in Spain is thought to be caused by the failure of the interconnect or that supplies power from France, which overloaded the rest of the grid, a similar situation happened in Eastern England when a large wind farm disconnected unexpectedly.

It is a timely reminder just how much we rely on electricity for everything we do, 10 yrs ago we had regular power cuts due to a local power line that was vulnerable to strong wind, that’s now been replaced, so we don’t get cuts.

Yes, obviously with móur dependence on computers, e-mail, atms, mobile phones hacking cyber systems will work very nicely.

In Denmark we have been warned that it is wise to have at least three days' supply of food in the house, torches, batteries, a transistor that runs on batteries and some means of making warm food that do not depend on electricity or town gas.

I have all of the above, plus a reasonable supply of cash in the house, a wood-burning stove and fuel enough for next winter, old fashioned parrafin lamps and fuel for them.

I fill the kettle before going to bed and the cats' water bowl.

Much more than that we cannot do, can we?

Finally home from Spain.

The renfe train line from Malaga to Fuengirola was not working when I left this morning.

Power is still intermittent in some areas/regions.

I dread to think how much M&S are losing right now, just had an email telling me a number of items I ordered on line last week, Sparks offers, have been cancelled and any money will be credited back to my account. Replicate that by tens of thousands around the country

petra

Neither of the above. It’s companies, governments etc taking their eye off the ball where cyber security is concerned.
And then there’s always a few who don’t want to pay to get problems fixed.

Absolutely. Trying, as in so many other ways, to run our country on the cheap

Terribull bedding I ordered from M&S has now been cancelled, first I got an email saying it was delayed, now cancelled. Annoying as , like yours, it was a sparks offer and now will cost more to buy in store or reorder.

Yes like you, UTBB, first delayed then cancelled. Maybe they might induce all of us who had ordered through our Sparks offers another opportunity by reissuing the same Sparks discounts. Maybe?

It is due to a general lack of service coupled with dumbing down and lack of funds.
Lack of service - I can see things need maintaining but it's not MY job, so why do I care
Dumbing down - the person who designed and built this is no longer around and we did not keep notes or records, so we do not actually know, or have the skills to work out how to fix it
Lack of funds - we do not have enough people to test or check things on a regular basis, so we skip until something breaks (see also potholes)

The Guardian is now reporting:

A major cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer has been linked to a hacking collective known as Scattered Spider, which is previously thought to have hit MGM Resorts and the US casino operator Caesars.

The group, which has previously been found to include people in their 20s from the UK and the US – some of whom faced charges over attempts to steal cryptocurrency via phishing attacks in the US – are reported to have encrypted key M&S systems using ransomware, according to the technology specialist site BleepingComputer.

Tim Mitchell, a senior threat researcher at SecureWorks, said that ... Scattered Spider, also known as Octo Tempest, appeared to be “quite unusual” as a hacking group in that they were largely English-speaking – unlike the majority of such groups, which are based in places such as Russia, where there is a more “permissive environment” where they have more freedom to operate.

He added: “Their motivation appears to be as much about bragging rights on those channels [where they communicate] as about money.”

More here:

www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/29/m-and-s-cyber-attack-linked-to-hacking-group-scattered-spider

That’s exactly what I think. China flexing its muscles …. Be afraid. Very afraid.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Spain, Portugal and France have electricity outages today.

My sister who lives in Estapona has no electricity at present and says all RENFE trains in Spain are cancelled.

M&S here in the UK are experiencing a 3rd day of cyber malware affecting on line ordering which has cost the company £800 million so far.

What are your thoughts?
Is this Putin/China hackers showing us what is possible?

Or Trump. USA owns social media. Just saying.

Maybe it is just a coincidence but I find it odd that M&S was found at fault in an employment tribunal (discrimination) then had a cyber attack.

I am convinced its a Cyber attack despite being told its not, its said to avoid panic, on line banking will be next. You have to look at who will gain by this.

DS, was cyber security, told me that many companies have been attacked but keep quiet as they don`t want to scare clients away

It must be relatively easy to cause disruption in old infrastructure, I am thinking Russia or people with grudges.

It appears relatively easy to hack into systems. My dgs hacked into his school system when he was 9 and built his own computer when he was 14. Lots of teenagers have the interest and ability

Cyber attacks are a problem we are going to have to cope with in the future, not just from enemy’s but from groups of malicious individuals.

Technical failures are always going to happen, the power cuts in Spain were caused by a 5 second cut in one of the supply systems, followed by a chain reaction when connected systems overloaded. Restoring supply can only be done stage buy stage which causes so much disruption.

We had a speaker at Probus who used to try to crack security systems in banks etc as part of his employment by them, to see if it was possible. He said it was often laughably easy and he used to report back to the managing directors who were horrified. It’s really a wonder it doesn’t happen more often. He told us a few things to do to protect ourselves, including using a VPN before doing any online banking or paying bills online.

What sort of a world do we live in!

Is this Putin/China hackers showing us what is possible?

No. I don't think so.
Neither that nor the substation fires yesterday and (?) last month.

Older companies often don't want to update systems that have been tinkered with for years. They probably should have been replaced but the transition is hugely costly and they are reluctant to risk downtime.

My son (another IT bod) has been warning one of his clients about risk for at least a year and it was only when they had a disaster that they allowed him to implement the full plan he'd originally suggested.
He is now billing them for 100s of hours.

My friend (now 70s) was paid a retainer from his mid 50s to be "on call" for a massive company using a now defunct system to track stock. It was programmed in a language something he used at college in his 20s that nobody uses now.
He was laughing last autumn as they have finally taken advice to transfer to a modern system and were asking to terminate the contract - once they had done it!

I suppose early adopters of modern technology/computing are easily left behind.
Come later - come cheaper?