Grocery giant Ahold Delhaize confirms cyberattack forced US and European systems offline

Dutch grocery giant Ahold Delhaize, which operates US supermarket chains Food Lion, Giant Food, and Stop & Shop, said it proactively took IT systems offline following a cyberattack, affecting most of its US and European brands. The multinational chain originally disclosed the incident on October 12. “Ahold Delhaize is experiencing a security issue within its network,” it said at the time, adding that security teams, working to mitigate the issues, took “some” IT systems offline. On Monday, the company confirmed that it proactively took certain IT systems, including websites and apps, offline, affecting most of its brands, and said that “malicious actions of others” caused the security issue. “Taking systems offline to help protect them was a precautionary measure that affected most of our brands across Europe and the United States,” Frans Muller, president and CEO of Ahold Delhaize, said in a Monday statement. “The investigation to date confirms this was the right decision.” …