Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
Giant Food Stores’ website and app came back online Tuesday after a nearly weeklong outage caused by a “cybersecurity issue.”
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The grocery chain’s digital ordering platform, website, and app were knocked offline, but store locations remained open throughout the incident.
Customers were still able to place delivery orders using third-party services, including Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats.
Parent company Ahold Delhaize, which operates Giant alongside several other retail brands across the United States and Europe, said in a statement that the incident involved “suspicious activity” and has been reported to authorities in the Netherlands.
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“As the investigation is ongoing, we are not sharing further details that could compromise security measures or interfere with our response efforts,” the company stated. “While our investigation is still ongoing, we have no evidence at this moment that suggests that any sensitive customer, associate or partner data was taken.”
Ahold Delhaize President and CEO Frans Muller said the system shutdowns were a safeguard undertaken by IT staff.
“Taking systems offline to help protect them was a precautionary measure that affected most of our brands across Europe and the United States,” Muller said. “The investigation to date confirms this was the right decision. Although this incident was caused by the malicious actions of others, we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused – especially to our customers. We take seriously the trust you place in us.”
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In addition to Giant Food Stores, Ahold Delhaize operates the Food Lion, Hannaford, and Stop and Shop locations. It has additional brands across eight other European countries.
