Albert Heijn has become a staple of life in the Netherlands, however, since Sunday, it has been experiencing chaos. This is due to what they are referring to as a “digital security incident.”
Experts are certain that, in other words, the company has been hacked.
And as of Tuesday morning, important digital systems remain shut down.
According to Nu.nl, people are still unable to order groceries online, the app is not working, the digital price tags are still showing last week’s prices, and even distribution centres are at a standstill.
Someone has breached the system
Cybersecurity experts believe that such a swift mass shut down indicates one thing: someone breached the system and potentially stole data.
“It seems pretty clear to me that a malicious actor has been inside the system. Albert Heijn has shut down a number of systems preventively; that is very common to prevent further damage if someone is in your systems,” cybersecurity expert Pim Takkenberg tells Nieuwsuur.
If it were a simple outage, he explains, the systems wouldn’t be down for this long.
What did they take?
As to whether anything has actually been stolen, experts will have to provide their own guesses.
Albert Heijn remains tight-lipped, but according to Takkenberg, “If malicious actors turned the key in the front door lock, they may also have looked inside and viewed or stolen data,” NOS writes.
Of course, the ultimate reason for doing this is simple: money. He explains “They try to hack systems, steal data, and then threaten to publish it if you don’t pay. Maybe a group will come forward soon.”
While many may consider “hacktivists” or even Russia to be potential actors behind the hack, Takkenberg thinks the most likely answer is cybercriminals.
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