Pembina West Co-op in Barrhead and Neerlandia Co-op are struggling to get food orders processes following a cyber attack last week with produce racks dwindling and limited orders coming in.
“Federated Co-op, Grocery, and card-locks were affected but client account information was not accessed,” stated Ryan Roy, Manager for the Barrhead Pembina West location.
“Part of the attack affected the food ordering system, and we are struggling to get food orders processed.”
The website is down and a message of “This site can’t be reached” displays when attempts to access the website are made.
Allegations are circulating that the hackers are claiming to release sensitive data obtained in the attack.
A third party expert is investigating the true extent of the attack and will make determinations whether data was compromised.
On June 27 Pembina West Co-op posted on Facebook that there was a system wide outage and provided an update.
The outage is causing continued disruptions while customer-facing services remain open.
Cardlocks in Barrhead, Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt were fully operational as of June 27.
The card-locks were originally down completely the first few days after the attack.
Co-op Gas Bar stores are having issues with tobacco and other item shortages due to challenges ordering product.
The Gas Bar is experiencing high call volumes about the situation, reducing response time to callers.
The Co-op Home Centre is also having product order struggles, especially in receiving flyer feature products in the store.
The Barrhead and Mayerthorpe Food Stores are having challenges with order shortages.
Food stores are having trouble getting features in the flyers in supply t their stores.
The issues are ongoing and Federated Co-op is working diligently to try and rectify the situation as quickly as they can.
Stores right across Alberta and the rest of Canada are affected by the attack and are experiencing food shortages due.
A sign was posted in the Co-op entrance as of July 8 saying, “Federated Co-operatives is experiencing a cybersecurity incident.”
“This is impacting some internal and customer-facing systems and could impact our current inventory of certain grocery items.”
“There is no evidence at this time that consumer data was compromised.”
“If an investigation determines that consumer data was compromised, we will take appropriate action.”
The technical issues are causing longer phone wit times and transaction times can delayed longer than usual.
“Thank you for your understanding and continued support,” commented Pembina West Co-op in the Facebook post.
The sign was not seen at the Co-op entrance on July 9.
Federated Co-operatives Limited issued an update on the afternoon of July 3.
"We are making significant progress in restoring some operations. The cybersecurity incident has slowed down certain aspects of our business, but we are prioritizing key grocery items and consumer goods for delivery to local Co-ops. We are working to recover from the incident, but ask for your patience as we continue to build our way back to regular operations," the update said.
"Co-op cardlock fuel locations were widely impacted by the cybersecurity incident, but our teams continue to get more cardlocks pumping fuel every day. A main priority is to get all cardlock locations back online as soon as possible. We want to reinforce that fuel supply to co-op retail gas bars has been relatively unaffected and customers can fill up at all Co-op retail locations."
