Ahold Delhaize, one of the world's largest food retailers, has confirmed that a cyberattack last week disrupted services at its brands in Europe and the United States. Websites, apps and customer-service channels at Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall in the Netherlands and at Delhaize in Belgium were unusable, and staff at the US chain Stop & Shop reported trouble reaching schedules and pay information. The company took some systems offline as a precaution, and stores remained open.
In an update on Monday, the company said most store websites and apps in Central and Southeastern Europe were back online, while some systems for European and US brands were still down. Albert Heijn's site and app have returned, with home deliveries due to resume on Friday 23 October. Etos and Gall & Gall sites are available, and online shopping in Belgium is fully working. Online services for its US brands are expected back in the coming days.
Investigation
The company told the Dutch national cyber-security centre within 24 hours of finding the malicious activity, filed a police report in the Netherlands and is keeping law enforcement and regulators informed. Its investigation has not so far found evidence that sensitive customer, employee or partner data was taken. A spokesperson declined to say whether corporate and store systems were both hit or whether devices were encrypted, saying details could hamper the response. Chief executive Frans Muller said the incident resulted from the malicious actions of others and apologised to customers.
The group employs more than 384,000 people and runs 9,551 stores serving about 77 million customers a week. It was hit before: a November 2024 attack on its US systems led to the theft of personal, financial and health data on more than 2.2 million people, and a ransomware gang claimed it. Whether the same group is behind this attack has not been stated, also possible use of artificial intelligence is not ruled out.
