[UPDATED] Cyberattack cripples Massy Stores, forces closure at 23 supermarkets

A cyberattack crippled Massy Stores in Trinidad on Thursday forcing the supermarket giant to close its 23 stores islandwide.

The hit caused a failure of its IT system which prevented customers from shopping not only at its stores but in-store pharmacies and affected its money transfer services – Surepay and Moneygram.

In a media release shortly after 4 pm, Massy Stores confirmed it was the target of a cybersecurity attack.

“The company took immediate action, suspending all customer-facing systems, and has been working with third party experts to resolve the situation.

“Backup servers were not affected, and the technical team is actively working with the expert teams to restore the system safely and in the shortest time possible.

“The company is not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised or misused as a result of the situation,” it said.

Massy Stores added that the incident will take time to resolve and all its supermarkets remained closed for the rest of Thursday but expected to resume normal operations on Friday.

Marketing and communications assistant vice president Candace Ali said customers were unable to purchase grocery or pharmacy items but were able to purchase prepared food via cash transactions.

She said the technical difficulties hampered their front-end checkout systems, so all cash points had to be closed in Trinidad only but all other stores in the region were operating normally.

She said, “Anyone who showed up was told that we could not facilitate any transactions. The only thing we are able to sell is prepared food, so we had stations set up at the front of the stores for that.”

“For the most part we would be back up because we have a robust IT system and there are always server back-ups. Customers can keep checking our social media pages for updates.

“We are unable to determine the losses at this time and the cost of repair works.”

The supermarket chain has 23 stores in Trinidad and 61 stores in the Caribbean region.

In a media release shortly after noon on Thursday, Massy Stores notified its customers about the technical difficulties and apologised for the inconvenience since it also had to suspend curbside and delivery services.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, all Massy Stores supermarkets across the country are affected. These challenges impact on our customer shopping experience as items cannot be purchased from our store locations or pharmacies at this time.

“Surepay and Moneygram customers are also advised to visit alternative locations to access bill payment and wire money transfer services,” it said.

Massy Stores cardholders were advised to retain copies of their bills in order to be credited points at a later date.

ASP Sheridon Hill of the TTPS communications unit said the company had not made a report as of 6 pm.

“Officials from the National Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) contacted the police, and they are aware of the incident through the media reports, but they have not received any official report from anyone who would have been affected. If a report has been made, we will do our enquiries,” he told Newsday.

Ali said she was unable to confirm if Massy Stores reported the matter to the police cybercrime unit.

Supermarket Association of TT (SATT) president Rajiv Diptee said the incident was of grave concern not just for its members but for any business using technology for monetary and data transactions.

He said cybercrime was gripping harder globally recently because of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“What we have noticed is that the attacks originate, even though it is very difficult to confirm, the attacks are not in local territories. It is really up to the stores to determine the IT integrity of the operations that they have in place.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic there was a spike in activity where cyberattacks were concerned and this was something we sought to deal with, with the assistance of the cybersecurity and reporting incidence unit and held stakeholder session in 2020 and 2021,” Diptee said.

He added that Massy Stores handled the crisis well and was in constant communication with their customers, assuring that their data was protected.

SATT, Diptee said, will be taking strategic steps to ensure that its members do not take cyberattacks for granted and that all necessary measures to protect against it were in place.

“These attacks are real. It is a different level of protection needed now. We will have to make certain changes, and these will be internal and based on the professionals that we bring in and CSIRT. The integrity of the systems that we are using must be robust.”

This was not the first cybersecurity attack on a major company. In 2020, the Ansa McAl Group was attacked by a Russian ransomware organisation, which started in Barbados and spread to the company's operations in TT, subsequently leading to a shutdown of Tatil and Tatil Life.

This story was originally published with the title "Cyberattack on Massy Stores forces closure" and has been adjusted to include additional details. See original post below.

Massy Stores throughout Trinidad were closed on Thursday after a failure of the IT system prevented customers from shopping.

In a media release shortly after 4 pm, Massy Stores confirmed that it was the target of a cybersecurity attack and had to shut down operations at its 23 stores islandwide.

Massy said, “The company took immediate action, suspending all customer-facing systems, and has been working with third-party experts to resolve the situation.

“Backup servers were not affected, and the technical team is actively working with the expert teams to restore the system safely and in the shortest time possible.

“The company is not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised or misused as a result of the situation.”

It added that the incident will take time some to resolve and all its supermarkets remained closed for the rest of Thursday, but it was expected that all stores would open as usual on Friday.

Marketing and communications assistant vice president Candace Ali said customers were unable to buy grocery or pharmacy items but could buy prepared food in cash transactions.

She said the technical difficulties hampered the front-end checkout systems, so all cash points had to be closed in Trinidad only. All other stores in the region were operating normally.

“Anyone who showed up was told that we could not facilitate any transactions. The only thing we are able to sell is prepared food, so we had stations set up at the front of the stores for that.

“For the most part we would be back up, because we have robust IT systems and there are always server back-ups. Customers can keep checking our social media pages for updates."

She said as yet the company was unable to determine the losses or the cost of repairs.

The supermarket franchise has 61 stores in the Caribbean region.

In a media release shortly after noon on Thursday, Massy Stores notified its customers about the technical difficulties and apologised for the inconvenience since it also had to suspend curbside and delivery.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, all Massy Stores supermarkets across the country are affected. These challenges impact on our customer shopping experience as items cannot be purchased from our store locations or pharmacies at this time.

“Surepay and Moneygram customers are also advised to visit alternative locations to access bill payment and wire money transfer services,” it said.

It said its technical team was working to restore the system as soon as possible and was investigating the cause of the problem.

The supermarket also advised Massy cardholders to keep copies of their bills in order to be credited with Massy points at a later date.

Customers can contact the customer care team for further support by calling 768 7225, 609 4456 ext 31088 or emailing customerexperience.tt@massystores.com