Indian IT giant investigates link to M&S cyber-attack

An Indian IT institution is conducting an interior probe to find whether it was the gateway for the cyber-attack connected Marks & Spencer, BBC News understands.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has provided services to M&S for much than a decade.

Earlier this week, M&S said the hackers who had brought immense disruption to the retailer had managed to summation entree to their systems via a "third party" - a institution moving alongside it - alternatively than accessing those systems directly.

M&S and TCS person some declined to comment.

The FT, which first reported the story, cited radical adjacent to the probe who said it was hoped the enquiry would beryllium concluded by the extremity of the month.

It is not wide erstwhile TCS launched its investigation.

Customers person not been capable to bargain items connected the M&S website since the extremity of April.

It said earlier this week that online services should spot a gradual instrumentality to mean implicit the coming weeks, but immoderate level of disruption would proceed until July.

M&S estimates that the cyber-attack volition deed this year's profits by astir £300m.

Police are focusing connected a notorious radical of English-speaking hackers, known arsenic Scattered Spider, the BBC has learned.

The aforesaid radical is believed to person been down attacks connected the Co-op and Harrods, but it was M&S that suffered the biggest impact.

TCS says it has implicit 607,000 employees crossed the satellite and is the pb sponsor of 3 prestigious marathons - New York, London and Sydney.

On its website, TCS said it worked with M&S connected Sparks, its lawsuit reward scheme.

In 2023, TCS and M&S won the Retail Partnership of the Year award astatine the Retail Systems Awards.

TCS has a portfolio of well-known clients including the Co-op, according to its website.

There is nary denotation if the interior probe is besides looking astatine the hack connected the Co-Op.

TCS besides counts easyjet, Nationwide and Jaguar Land Rover among its galore clients.

Earlier this week, M&S main enforcement Stuart Machin said: "Over the past fewer weeks, we person been managing a highly blase and targeted cyber-attack, which has led to a constricted play of disruption."

In a media telephone connected Wednesday, helium did not respond to a question astir whether the institution had paid a ransom arsenic portion of the process.