UK’s WH Smith suffered a cyberattack, resulting in data loss

One of the United Kingdom’s well-known retailing companies, WH Smith, experienced a data breach incident that exposed data owned by their current and former employees.

This company owns about 1,700 stores in different locations in the UK and employs more than 12,500. This British company earned nearly $1.7 billion in revenue last year.

Based on reports, WH Smith PLC has been the target of a cyber security campaign that resulted in the illegal breach of some of its company data. The retail firm admitted that the incident accessed their current and former employee information.

 

WH Smith clarified that the attackers did not acquire customer details from their system.

 

According to investigations, the attack on WH Smith did not impact its trading business. Its customer data was not affected since the company stored it on separate systems that the actors did not reach.

However, individuals who confirm that the incident has impacted them will receive a direct message from WH Smith. A company representative said they would deploy special measures to support the affected individuals. The retail giant will likely provide a free identity protection service to the compromised data owners.

The company has yet to disclose the nature of the incident, but many believe it is a ransomware attack. Furthermore, WH Smith has yet to reveal the number of individuals affected by the incident.

Researchers claimed that the cybersecurity incident against WH Smite occurred in the last weeks of January since it is the company’s previous trading update date. Unfortunately, the British retailing firm has not discussed the attack’s origin and time.

On the other hand, a local news report entity claimed that the cybersecurity incident happened last week.

The start of the year has been rough for the UK since they have already experienced several high-stake ransomware attacks that resulted in severe business disruptions and extensive data leaks.

A couple of months ago, the JD Sports apparel chain revealed that it suffered a data breach incident in which the hackers infected its servers and stole millions of online order details.