Spar stores crippled by cyber attack

The problem began yesterday (6 December) when many Spar stores found they were unable to take card payments.

It is understood that the website of wholesaler James Hall also crashed. James Hall supplies nearly 600 Spar stores across the north of England.

Spar reported that it was aware of an online attack on its IT systems, which has been described as a “total outage”.

Some Spar stores closed completely but others have remained open but just accepted cash payments.

The company is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Lawrence Hunt & Co, an independent Spar retailer with 25 stores, tweeted: “Unfortunately due to a total network outage affecting tills, credit cards and back office systems, it looks like we will remain closed for the whole of Sunday.

“Apologies from the whole of the Hunts team for the massive inconvenience to all our customers.

“We hope our partners will get us back up and running very soon.”

We have contacted James Hall and Spar for comment.