Ahold Delhaize Restores Services After Cybersecurity Outage
Ahold Delhaize restored digital services for its U.S. brands, including Hannaford, after a precautionary system shutdown following a cybersecurity incident.
The Dutch parent company Ahold Delhaize restored website, app, and delivery services for its U.S. brands, including Hannaford, on October 20. The company had proactively taken systems offline across most of its brands in the United States and Europe after detecting suspicious activity in its IT infrastructure on October 12.
While European brands like Albert Heijn and Delhaize returned online by October 19, U.S. services for Hannaford, Stop & Shop, Food Lion, and Giant remained offline for a week. Ahold Delhaize notified the National Cybersecurity Center of the Netherlands and filed a police report with Dutch authorities. The company stated there is no evidence that sensitive customer, associate, or partner data was compromised.
To compensate customers, Stop & Shop offered a 10 percent in-store discount, and Hannaford provided My Hannaford Rewards members $10 off purchases of $100 or more through October 28. The outage occurred alongside a separate cyberattack on 700 French supermarkets that disrupted refrigeration units. Although some Hannaford locations reported refrigeration failures, company spokespeople denied any link between the two events.
Frans Muller, CEO of Ahold Delhaize, apologized for the disruption, describing the shutdown as a precautionary measure. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure characterized the separate attacks on French retailers as an issue that "touches the heart of our food security."
