Yesterday I walked in to my local Cooperative food shop to find near empty shelves. The staff buzzing around, trying to look busy checking stock, when the obvious reality was, there was no stock to check.
I found the same this morning in another much bigger Cooperative food shop, in the city of Derby, where the Ickonic studio is based.
We are now nearly three weeks since UK retailers M&S and The Cooperative fell victim to hackers, that had managed to get inside the companies systems, and take them down from within.
I asked a member of staff when they expected things to get back to normal, and she shrugged her shoulders. “No idea” she said. “I don’t understand how it all works”.
A leading cyber security agent from Manchester based Citation Cyber was quoted as saying that he believes it could take up to three years for M&S and Coop to get their systems back to normal. THREE YEARS.
I was unable to find what I was looking for, and so I walked around the corner and found another shop to get what I needed. No great drama. But imagine this was the only shop in the village?
The Cooperative in particular have many stores in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Incredibly remote places where the Coop is pretty much the focal point of the village, and the only food source in town. What happens now their shelves are empty?
Read more: Convenience Is Now A Weapon Of War – Op Ed
