indigo cyber attack

Indigo's website down following 'cybersecurity incident' at bookstore chain

Indigo Books & Music Inc. appears to be the latest high-profile Canadian organization to suffer a cyber attack — one impactful enough to take down the retailer's entire website for nearly a full day now (and counting.)

The Toronto-headquartered chain first notified customers on Wednesday afternoon that it was "experiencing technical issues," and that its popular online store was unavailable.

By 7:30 p.m., Indigo confirmed that it had experienced "a cybersecurity incident" earlier on Wednesday, noting that it was "working with third-party experts to investigate and resolve the situation."

"Our hope is to have our systems back online as soon as possible. In the interim, our website will remain unavailable," reads a notice currently posted at chapters.indigo.ca.

"At this time, we look forward to welcoming customers in our stores for cash transactions; we are temporarily unable to process electronic payments, or to accept gift cards or returns. We appreciate your patience as we work hard to resolve this issue."

It is unclear if any customer information has been compromised as a result of the attack on Canada's largest book, gift and toy retailer.

Customers have been inquiring on social media, but to no avail thus far.

"We are working with third-party experts to restore our systems and to understand if customer data has been accessed," reads a boilerplate message shared by Indigo's Twitter account with anyone asking about personal security risks.

"We commit to keeping our customers updated as more information becomes available."

Last month, the LCBO was targeted by hackers in an incident that took the liquor store's website and app offline for days.

The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) similarly experienced a ransomware attack in late December that took some of its systems completely offline, prompting it to declare a "Code Grey." Toronto's University Health Network followed suit with a Code Grey of its own just a few weeks later in the wake of an unexplained "digital outage."

Operations came to a halt at more than 1,500 Sobey's stores across the country during another notable cyber attack in November, just one year after hackers accessed the personal information of more than 25,000 Toronto Transit Commission employees during a ransomware attack.

Lead photo by

A Great Capture


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