"Cybersecurity incident:" Hack may be behind outage at Albert Heijn

The outage that has been affecting Albert Heijn and several other Ahold Delhaize subsidiaries since Sunday evening may have been a hack. Early this morning, the supermarket chain reported that it was offline due to an “IT incident.” Now Albert Heijn is speaking of a “cybersecurity incident.”

Parent company Ahold Delhaize said in a separate statement that the shutdown was a “precautionary measure” due to a “security issue within its systems.”

”We immediately took measures to protect our IT environment, which included the temporary, precautionary shutdown of several systems,” Albert Heijn said in a statement updated at 11:30 a.m.

The shutdown affected the websites of Albert Heijn, Etos, and Gall & Gall. The Albert Heijn app is also down.

All three brands are not accepting online orders at this time. In stores, electronic price tags may still show last week’s promotions, but the till reflects the current price. The loyalty program and Bonus cards are also not working, so customers may lose out on personal discounts.

“We are investigating the incident and working to restore our services. Protecting the data of our customers, employees, and partners is our top priority,” Albert Heijn said.

It is unclear how long this outage will last. Concerned clients can’t even call the supermarket chain’s customer service, as it is one of the systems that’s offline.

“We cannot yet say when our services will be available again. We will an update as soon as more information becomes available,” Albert Heijn said. “As soon as our customer service is available again, our colleagues will assist customers with their questions.”

“We would like to offer our sincere apologies for this situation.”