Marks and Spencer say disruption will to continue to July
Investors will be hoping that M&S bosses can shed light on the impact of a cyber attack that has halted all online orders.
The company will unveil its financial performance for the past year in an update to the stock market on Wednesday.
However, attention will be sharply focused on how the company is coping after weeks of disruption.
Local bigger co-op, heard this is more than just Co-op and M&S and has hit other supermarkets, something is telling me this isn’t down to a hack? @1GarethWynJones pic.twitter.com/n0Xll4c6fF
— Rachel Gilbertson (@film_rachel) May 10, 2025
For weeks, speculation has mounted that disruptive attacks on M&S, Co-op, Harrods and some US retailers could be the work of a hacking community called Scattered Spider.
Speaking about the hacks for the first time, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has told BBC News the group is a key part of its ongoing investigation to find the culprits.
“We are looking at the group that is publicly known as Scattered Spider, but we’ve got a range of different hypotheses and we’ll follow the evidence to get to the offenders,” Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s national cybercrime unit, said in a new BBC documentary.
The company has paused online orders for the past three weeks as a result, while payments and click and collect orders were also impacted.
M&S saw availability in stores also knocked by the disruption, causing some empty shelves as it changed parts of its IT systems, but said this was recovering quickly in an update on Thursday.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, told PA: “Although the annual numbers won’t show the effect, as they end before the outages of operations occurred, some guidance for the year ahead is expected, and it’s likely to be very cautious indeed.
“With online orders still suspended, the breach is expected to be costing around £4 million a day in lost sales.”
She added that fashion sales could be a particular casualty, with the disruption coming amid a spell of warm weather during a key period for spring/summer clothing lines.
Analysts at Barclays have suggested the cyber attack could result in a £200 million cost for the 2025/26 financial year, but that this is likely to be offset by an insurance payout of around £100 million.
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The attack knocked the business after a positive period under the leadership of Stuart Machin, with shares striking an almost nine-year high last month before a recent drop in value.
Customer personal data, which could have included names, email addresses, postal addresses and dates of birth, was taken by hackers in the attack.
The retailer has not yet divulged the financial cost of the incident, but is believed to have missed out on tens of millions of pounds in sales.
Analysts have said shareholders will be eagerly awaiting the firm’s guidance on profits and revenues for the current year as a result.