With London Drugs stores in western Canada forced to close for multiple days due to a cyberattack, it remains unclear when they will be able to reopen.
The company told CityNews Wednesday it is “hoping to share an update later this morning.” Aside from this, no other details were shared about the investigation into the incident.
London Drugs stores in the west have been closed since Sunday morning. The company has since called in “leading” third-party cybersecurity experts to bring operations back online.
“Upon discovering the incident, London Drugs immediately undertook countermeasures to protect its network and data, including retaining leading third-party cybersecurity experts to assist with containment, remediation, and to conduct a forensic investigation,” the company said in a statement to CityNews earlier this week.
While the company initially said it had “no reason to believe that customer or employee data has been impacted,” the retailer noted in an update Tuesday that it was looking into that possibility.
“Our investigation is currently assessing the extent to which any data has been compromised in the incident. In the event our investigation determines that personal information was impacted, we will notify affected individuals in accordance with privacy laws,” a statement explained.
Few details have been provided as to what exactly the cyberattack entailed. One cybersecurity expert said the company could have been facing several threats but suspected the most likely scenario was a ransomware attack — where the victim is blocked from critical data until a ransom is paid.
Another expert told CityNews Tuesday there are distinct phases in incident response: identifying the threat, finding ways to isolate and eradicate the threat, and then, recovery.
-With files from Sonia Aslam