Sobeys, which owns the IGA banner in Quebec, reportedly suffered a cyberattack last Friday. The situation is creating problems in grocery stores and pharmacies across Canada, but the parent company refuses to give details.
“This morning it farts everywhere! Nothing works anymore. Orders, warehouses, deliveries to stores, employee pay, it’s a mess! says an employee.
The attack would have occurred on Friday and would target Sobeys across Canada, including IGA and IGA Extra, which are the two banners of Sobeys in Quebec.
According to rumors circulating, the hackers are asking for 500 bitcoins as a ransom, which is worth around 13.5 million Canadian dollars. In a press release published this morning, the parent company confirms “to have been affected by a computer problem”.
“Some in-store services operate intermittently or are subject to delays. Additionally, some pharmacies are experiencing technical difficulties when filling prescriptions,” the statement read.
Photo taken from the IGA website in Quebec
IGA’s online grocery service webpage, still down early Monday evening.
No online grocery at IGA
On the IGA grocer’s website, we read late Monday that the online grocery service was still out of service.
During a visit to the Log in an IGA on the South Shore, an employee confirmed to us that they were having trouble receiving orders. Another employee claimed things were slowing down inside and the store was getting duplicate orders, among other issues.
Total silence at IGA and Sobeys
At Sobeys Quebec, omerta reigns. Employees told us that their bosses had left them completely in the dark, and that they had only heard the news from customers on Friday afternoon.
On the web, several testimonials from people who claim to be employees of Sobeys and its subsidiaries claim that they were ordered not to say anything.
After issuing a statement saying that the company was affected by a “computer problem”, the company’s CEO, Pierre St-Laurent, later told other media that “the only thing we know, it’s because we have IT issues, but their nature is not defined”.
A sentence that makes Éric Parent, CEO of EVA Technologies, which specializes in computer security, jump.
“When I see phrases like that, they’re trying to buy time. It’s not true that they don’t know. If it’s ransomware, they know it right away, it’s just going to be humiliating when they announce it. »
Contacted by The newspaper, the spokeswoman for Sobeys in Quebec, Anne-Hélène Lavoie, categorically refused any interview.
“There will be no interview,” she repeated five times rather than one in a short discussion lasting less than two minutes.
It will be recalled that in 2020, personal information of IGA customers had been made public on the web. IGA assured then that it was not a fault on its online trading platform.
– In collaboration with Francis Halin and Julien McEvoy