[thousand_nights]

> M&S chair, told MPs that hackers had used “sophisticated impersonation” to gain entry “involving a third party.”

20 bucks says this sophisticated impersonation was social engineering a $5/hour outsourced customer support employee

> The attack is expected to lower operating profits by up to £300mn this year.

that's not counting the reputation and brand damage. M&S is seen as a premium retailer and this whole hack made them seem utterly incompetent and unreliable

> had decided to opt for another service provider after the process had completed

i wonder where this other provider is based. i think i'm gonna place another 20 bucks on this.

> The retailer continues to use the Indian group for other services.

lol.

[fencepost]

That was pretty well documented earlier this year (e.g. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/uk-shares-sec... about M&S and Co-Op). "the threat actors utilized the same social engineering attack to breach both M&S and Co-op."

[silisili]

> M&S is seen as a premium retailer and this whole hack made them seem utterly incompetent and unreliable

Hiring TCS to begin with made them seem utterly incompetent and unreliable.

Let them fail and be a warning to other companies trying to cheap out on IT.

[harvey9]

I doubt many people shopping for a sandwich and an unfashionable suit will be thinking about the M&S hack.

[fuzztester]

>20 bucks says this sophisticated impersonation was social engineering a $5/hour outsourced customer support employee

0 bucks says this below list of data breaches is much much more devastating. 0 bucks, because I don't have to bet on it, unlike you, because it's true:

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches

>This is a list of reports about data breaches, using data compiled from various sources, including press reports, government news releases, and mainstream news articles. The list includes those involving the theft or compromise of 30,000 or more records, although many smaller breaches occur continually. Breaches of large organizations where the number of records is still unknown are also listed. In addition, the various methods used in the breaches are listed, with hacking being the most common.

>Most reported breaches are in North America, at least in part because of relatively strict disclosure laws in North American countries.[citation needed] 95% of data breaches come from government, retail, or technology industries.[1] It is estimated that the average cost of a data breach will be over $150 million by 2020, with the global annual cost forecast to be $2.1 trillion.[2][3] As a result of data breaches, it is estimated that in first half of 2018 alone, about 4.5 billion records were exposed.[4] In 2019, a collection of 2.7 billion identity records, consisting of 774 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords, was posted on the web for sale.[5] In January 2024, a data breach dubbed the "mother of all breaches" was uncovered.[6] Over 26 billion records, including some from Twitter, Adobe, Canva, LinkedIn, and Dropbox, were found in the database.[7][8] No organization immediately claimed responsibility.[9]

>In August 2024, one of the largest data security breaches was revealed. It involved the background check databroker, National Public Data and exposed the personal information of nearly 3 billion people.[10]

[fuzztester]

>that's not counting the reputation and brand damage. M&S is seen as a premium retailer and this whole hack made them seem utterly incompetent and unreliable

>>The retailer continues to use the Indian group for other services.

>lol.

>is seen

lol. a lot of things are seen as blah blah. doesn't mean they are blah blah.

google is seen as a world leading tech company. yet see how HNers regard them (except those desperate for FAANG salaries).

If they hired their vendors without due diligence, they may be incompetent and unreliable themselves. On the other hand:

>> M&S chair, told MPs that hackers had used “sophisticated impersonation” to gain entry “involving a third party.”

If the impersonation was sophisticated, maybe it was not so much the fault of TCS?

If it was a Western company, would you talk / think the same?

Nahi. Non. Nein. Nyet. Nada.

lol.