Another day, another report of a major UK retailer desperately battling the consequences of a cyberattack. One after the other this week, M&S, Co-op, and Harrods have each had their turn in the headlines. Systems have been shut down, internal communications compromised, and orders cancelled.
The message is clear: business continuity is in crisis. As the details of these attacks continue to spill out, several factors need to be considered.
Retail exposure
Aside from their status as three of the country’s best-known brands, it’s no coincidence that the three businesses targeted are all in the retail sector. Why? Because retailers tick all the boxes that hackers look for in potential victims: vast quantities of customer data and complex supply chains involving many third parties. Add in a lack of investment in cyber security, and you have all the necessary ingredients.
The need to serve customers daily also leaves retailers badly exposed to ransomware. Even minimal downtime can lead to significant financial and reputational damage for these businesses, as M&S has already discovered.
Lessons to learn
The attacks on M&S, Co-op, and Harrods are a wake-up call for all retailers. Businesses up and down the country must now re-evaluate their readiness for similar attacks to avoid joining the list of victims.
When it comes to cyber readiness, there are two factors that every business needs to prioritise: culture and investment. Cyber security is no longer the preserve of siloed IT departments – it must be a board-level concern. Identity security, scenario planning, and staff training are all essential to prevent system breaches.
The importance of cyber resilience
The overwhelming majority of data breaches are due to human error. Phishing emails, weak passwords, and delayed software updates all open doors for cybercriminals to walk through. The statistics show that breaches are inevitable. Modern businesses, especially those as large as those in the headlines this week, are simply too sprawling to eliminate every potential vulnerability.
Traditional backup and recovery solutions are also no longer enough. Once attackers have penetrated your network, an organisation’s ability to respond quickly and protect against data loss becomes the defining factor in determining its capacity to recover.
A new standard
In the modern business landscape, there are four key pillars of cyber resilience that every organisation needs to ensure proactive data protection:
- Rapid recovery: With operations at risk, organisations need the ability to recover data and systems in minutes, not days or weeks.
- Ransomware detection: Identifying suspicious activity before damage is done can prevent the spread of ransomware.
- Immutable backups: Backup data must be tamper-proof, ensuring that even if production systems are compromised, recoveries are clean and secure.
- Compliance confidence: From GDPR to internal governance, robust protection and audit-ready records are non-negotiable.
Stay resilient with Redstor
This week’s three high-profile cyberattacks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the evolving threat landscape. Businesses that lack the same brand presence as high-street giants are no less at risk if they fail to prepare for similar attacks. SMBs often make particularly attractive targets for hackers because of their relatively lower investment in cyber security.
Redstor’s cloud-native platform offers real-time threat detection and rapid, on-demand recovery. With immutable, air-gapped backups and continuous protection across cloud, on-prem, and SaaS environments, we help organisations respond to cyber incidents with the confidence of knowing you’ll never have to contemplate paying a ransom or suffering prolonged downtime.
As M&S and others have discovered, keeping systems functional during cyber incidents is the difference between business continuity and chaos. Learn how Redstor can help keep you resilient by getting in touch today.