M&S breaks silence on giving out gift cards as compensation over cyber attack M&S was hit victim to a cyber incident last week, causing contactless payments to go down and disruption to click and collect orders. M&S breaks silence on giving out gift cards as compensation over cyber attack Marks and Spencer has revealed whether it’s giving out gift cards as compensation over cyber attack chaos. M&S was hit victim to a cyber incident last week, causing contactless payments to go down and disruption to click and collect orders. The Sun asked the retailer after one shopper claimed to have been offered a £25 gift card over a cancelled order. A spokesperson said: “Our Customer Service team always support customers to make sure they’re getting the best experience when shopping at M&S and we always do that on an individual basis.” ‌ "While they are not as well-resourced as some nation-state actors or long-established ransomware syndicates, Scattered Spider is far from "small fry,"" Jamie Akhtar, CEO and Co-founder at CyberSmart, told The Sun. ‌ READ MORE 39 counties in England at risk of 'power cuts' in 29C UK heatwave "Scattered Spider, also tracked as UNC3944, has become one of the most active and disruptive threat actors in the last 18 months. This is a group known not for sheer technical sophistication, but for their ability to manipulate access, often by impersonating employees or exploiting multi-factor authentication systems." Article continues below Tim Mitchell, a senior security researcher at Secureworks, said Scattered Spider, also known as Octo Tempest, appeared to be “quite unusual” as a hacking group in that they were largely English-speaking rather than Russian, which is “permissive environment” where they have more freedom to operate. He added: “Their motivation appears to be as much about bragging rights on those channels [where they communicate] as about money.” Julius Černiauskas, the chief executive of the web intelligence experts Oxylabs, said: “Following the M&S cyber-attack and the potential involvement of hacking group Scattered Spider, all major UK retailers will be seriously worried if they’ll be tangled in the web next. Article continues below "The impact on the M&S share price shows the damage these attacks can do and will have many corporate retailers working day and night to ensure they do not suffer a similar fate. “Ransomware gangs typically target companies like M&S with the aim of causing maximum disruption to force a quick payout. Their goal is simple: the greater the disruption, the greater the pressure on the company to pay the ransom.”