Funky Pigeon, an online retail store that exclusively deals with greeting cards and gifts, has suspended its operations after it experienced a cyber attack on its servers. The impact of the digital assault is yet to be found out, but the company states that it will recover completely by this weekend.
WHSmith, an England-based retailer that is in the business of selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products. And owns Funky Pigeon released a press statement admitting a cyber attack on its IT infrastructure and suspension of operations since April 14th, 2022.
WH Smith assured that no financial information was accessed or leaked to hackers as they are processed through 3rd party paying gateways.
An investigation has been launched to probe whether any details such as names, addresses, and email addresses were accessed or stolen by cyber-crooks.
Unconfirmed sources say that the attack could be a ransomware variant as files on 2 servers remained inaccessible as the database was encrypted with malware.
Data regulators and law enforcement agencies were informed about the breach and issued an apology to affected customers.
Note 1- A ransomware attack is a kind of malware attack where cybercriminals hack a database and induce malware to lock it down from access until a ransom is paid.
Note 2- To corner the victim, the hackers spreading file-encrypting malware will first steal a portion of data and then encrypt the database. As it allows them to earn money by selling the siphoned details on the dark web, just in case, if the victimized company denies paying a ransom.
