The Record reported that South African retailer The Foschini Group (TFG) disclosed a cyberattack on Tuesday. It disrupted IT systems at three British brands: Phase Eight, Hobbs and Whistles. TFG found the incident on Sunday. In a notice to investors, it said stores remain open but several IT systems are still offline. It has told UK authorities and is working with cybersecurity specialists.
TFG has not named the attackers or said how they got in. It has not yet established whether personal or sensitive data was compromised. A customer email, cited by local media, warned of delayed orders and asked shoppers not to reorder. TFG said an outside provider handles payments and it has no reason to think payment data is at risk. It said its other UK brands, Inside Story and White Stuff, were unaffected. It also said its South African and Australian operations were unaffected because they use separate IT systems.
Our reading, not TFG's: system design decides how far an attack can reach. Separate systems keep one unit's logins, orders and web shop apart from another's, so trouble in one does not automatically spread. TFG has not said how the attackers got in, so we cannot say whether separation limited this attack. Budget holders can ask which units share logins, order or web shop systems, and what keeps running if one fails.