Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch-Belgian grocery group whose brands include Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Food Lion and Stop & Shop, has confirmed that the IT outages that disrupted its operations for the past week were the result of a cyberattack. The company said on October 19 that investigation had determined the suspicious activity detected on October 12 came from “malicious actions of others,” and that it had filed a report with Dutch police.
The company first disclosed the incident on October 12, saying it had taken systems offline as a precaution while keeping stores open. An October 13 update said it was working with internal teams, external cybersecurity experts and authorities, and had begun a controlled re-launch of some systems.
The Record reported on October 19 that Ahold Delhaize had notified the Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre within 24 hours of detecting the incident. EUtoday reported that the company said it had found no evidence so far that sensitive information belonging to customers, employees or partners had been taken, echoing earlier Reuters reporting that the company had no indication client data was stolen.
Which brands are affected
According to Supermarket News, the incident took websites and online grocery ordering offline for US banners Food Lion, Hannaford, Stop & Shop and Giant Food, along with European sites including Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Etos and Gall & Gall. BleepingComputer reported that Stop & Shop employees could not access schedules and pay stubs, and that customers could not use websites, apps or customer service platforms at Albert Heijn, Etos, Gall & Gall and Delhaize. Physical stores stayed open throughout.
As of October 19, restoration was uneven. The Record reported that the Dutch brands Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall were back online, but Albert Heijn home deliveries were not expected to resume until Friday, and US brands’ online shopping services were still offline though expected to return in the coming days.
The Brussels Times reported on October 17 that Delhaize’s online ordering service was fully operational again, though stores were still using an older internal ordering system and e-Deals personalized offers were unavailable. Albert Heijn’s online ordering and home delivery were not expected back until at least Tuesday.
What is still unknown
The company has not said what kind of attack hit its network, and no threat actor has publicly claimed responsibility. TechRadar noted that as of October 13 no stolen data had appeared on the dark web in connection with the incident.
It is the second security incident in two years for the retailer. In November 2024, a ransomware attack on Ahold Delhaize’s US operations was attributed to the INC Ransom group, according to TechRadar.