Albert Heijn owner files police report over cyberattack

Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, filed a police report on Monday following a cyberattack that forced it offline for over a week. The company confirmed that the suspicious activity in its IT systems was the result of "the malicious actions of others" in a statement on Monday. Initially, Albert Heijn had referred to the issue as a "cybersecurity incident."

Police and the public prosecution service urged the company to file a report last week, as a criminal investigation cannot commence without one. While the reason for the company's decision to file a police report remains unclear, it did notify the National Cyber Security Centre within 24 hours of discovering the attack, as required by a new cybersecurity law that took effect on August 15.

Albert Heijn's website and app have since been restored, and home deliveries are anticipated to resume on Friday, October 23. The company's websites for drugstore chain Etos and drinks chain Gall & Gall are also back online. Ahold Delhaize has not found any evidence that sensitive data belonging to customers, staff, or business partners has been compromised, and they declined to provide further details, citing the potential compromise of their security measures.

The Albert Heijn cyberattack is one of the first significant incidents since the new reporting law came into force, affecting approximately 8,000 organizations crucial to the Netherlands, including healthcare, drinking water, banks, and supermarkets. Security sources suggested that servers in the US, Poland, Moldova, and Turkey were utilized in the attack, with insiders telling the Financieele Dagblad that the outage is costing the company "tens of millions" of euros daily.