Cyberattack closes all London Drugs stores

From Manitoba to BC, most customers looking to stop at London Drugs were turned away. They told me that they were closed, that the tills weren’t working. The drugstore chain is dealing with the fallout of what it calls a cybersecurity incident. First discovered Sunday, all 79 locations now closed indefinitely. Surprising news to some. It is really bad. It’s bad for business as well, you know. Pharmacists are still working to help customers with urgent needs. I just phoned them at the prescription counter and they they delivered to me at the front door. Since that call, the company says its phone lines have been taken down and will only be restored after the investigation is done. Now those pharmacy customers told to show up in person. In a statement, London Drug says it immediately took countermeasures to protect its network and data. The incident is likely a ransomware attack. This expert says it is very important to minimize the damage to systems. I call this stop the bleeding and what? Organizations do is they’re over cautious and they shut down all their systems while they investigate. In recent years, Indigo, Sobeys and Suncor have also fallen prey to cyberattacks, impacting their customer service in various ways. Making this issue a priority, says this expert, the boards and CEO’s are realizing that there needs to be a sort of a game plan to live in a world of threat and understand the threats in in sort of real time. For shoppers, questions remain over how a chain they rely on could become so vulnerable. I just can’t imagine that it was happening. And I didn’t realize how bad it serious it was. Lenin Drug says there’s no indication customer or employee data has been impacted, but adds it will notify those affected if it discovers personal information has been compromised. Julia Wong, CBC News, Edmonton.