The hacker group referred to as the Scattered Spiders is a major focus in criminal investigations concerning cyberattacks against UK retailers, including Marks & Spencer, according to detectives.
The Scattered Spiders, a loosely organized collective of native English-speaking cybercriminals, have been strongly associated with hacking incidents involving M&S, cooperatives, and Harrods. M&S announced on Wednesday that it anticipates a financial impact of approximately £300 million following the recent system breach.
The UK’s National Crime Agency, tasked with combating cybercrime, stated that investigating this group is a priority.
“We are aware of groups publicly identified as Scattered Spiders, yet we maintain various theories as we pursue the evidence to identify the perpetrator,” I informed the BBC.
He added: “Given the extent of the damage we’re witnessing, apprehending the individual responsible for these attacks is our foremost objective.”
Last week, Google informed the Guardian that its UK-based members of the Scattered Spiders were actively “promoting” cyberattacks and warned the US that efforts to infiltrate the UK retailers’ systems were being mirrored in the US.
Targeting specific industries and locations is a common strategy among the Scattered Spider community, who utilize platforms like Discord and Telegram for communication.
Hackers affiliated with M&S deploy ransomware or malicious software that encrypts targeted files. This type of cybercrime is typically associated with Russian-speaking gangs, rather than native English speakers from the UK or the US.
“We are aware that Scattered Spiders predominantly communicate in English, but this does not necessarily imply that they are located in the UK. They engage in online discussions across a variety of platforms and channels.”
Reportedly, these hackers have utilized ransomware known as Dragon Force in their operations, functioning as a ransomware as a service that leverages another group of malware and infrastructure to distribute financial gains from attacks. Ransomware attackers generally request payment in cryptocurrency to unlock encrypted files and return stolen data.
Insights into the suspected Scattered Spiders can be found in a report from the US Department of Justice, which charged five individuals last year for targeting an unnamed American company through a “phishing” text message.
All defendants were in their twenties at the time of the allegations, with ages ranging from 20 to 25. Among them was Tyler Buchanan, 23, hailing from Scotland, who was extradited from Spain to the US.
Google also mentioned that “younger members” of the network often carry out various tasks, such as calling the company’s IT help desk or impersonating employees or contractors to gain access to computer systems. A former teenage hacker cited by the BBC remarked that it “would not surprise me” if a teenage hacker was behind a retail attack.
EElectronic shelf labels, return machines, robotic bagging machines and even self-service tills are just some of the many technologies UK retailers are adopting to solve the problem of rising labor costs.
Big retailers have been releasing a flurry of festive deals in recent weeks as they face rising labor costs from April following increases in the national minimum wage and employers' National Insurance Contributions (NICs). , investment in automation has always been active.
The investment could boost productivity in an industry that has long relied on cheap labor – a key goal of the government. But they will also replace entry-level jobs and reduce the number of roles in the sector, which is Britain's biggest employer.
When the British Retail Consortium asked finance chiefs at major retailers how they would respond to the impending increase in employer NICs, almost a third said they would make greater use of automation, but this Hours of what's behind the hike, head office job cuts, and reductions in working hours.
So what innovations are they considering and whose jobs might they impact?
electronic shelf price labels
Electronic shelf labels are already common in some other countries, and could be on UK high streets in the blink of an eye by 2025. One retailer's manager told the Guardian that NIC's rising labor costs suddenly made the switch economically viable.
Change prices with the push of a button, saving staff time removing and replacing hundreds of small paper labels. Electronics chain Currys plans to introduce electronic pricing to 100 of its 300 UK stores by the end of this year after trials in stores in Northern Europe, with supermarket groups Sainsbury's and Co-op also experimenting.
self service
Shopper-operated checkouts are widespread in supermarkets, and we expect to see more of them in fashion and home goods retailers this year.
Primark is rolling out the service in 41 stores in the UK and plans to expand to at least five more this spring, while Next is piloting it in one branch.
Inditex, owner of Japanese fashion chains Uniqlo and Zara, has led the way with technology that allows customers to recall entire baskets of goods without having to scan them with wireless tags. Marks & Spencer is experimenting with this approach for customers purchasing non-food items.
Grocery stores are also continuing to innovate. Co-ops are testing hybrid checkouts that can be operated by self-service or staff, and some supermarkets have added larger self-checkouts suitable for handling full carts.
Self-scanning systems, such as Sainsbury's SmartShop and Tesco's Scan as you Shop, where shoppers use a handheld device or smartphone app to recall prices, are also on the rise. Sainsbury's said 30% of the groceries it sold during the peak holiday season were processed through SmartShop, leading to “lower costs and faster checkouts”.
Automated return machines have also been introduced, allowing shoppers to drop off unwanted items by simply swiping a QR code. John Lewis is testing the product at three Waitrose stores.
But the idea of leaving stores completely unmanned has been questioned. Amazon's “Just Walk Out” store, where shoppers sign in through an app and technology automatically monitors and charges their purchases, hasn't been a huge success. The company has 21 stores in the UK, with one store opening in north London in November after several closures in 2023 and 2024. Tesco only has four GetGo self-service stores, the first of which opened in 2021, while Aldi only has one such store in the UK.
Retailers have been gradually increasing automation in their warehouses for years, but rising labor costs are accelerating that trend.
Sales of assembly line robots to food and drink, logistics and consumer goods companies rose 31% in the first nine months of last year, according to industry body Automate UK. This number does not include autonomous mobile robots, which move and complete tasks without a human operator and are becoming increasingly popular.
For example, Amazon and John Lewis use autonomous robots to move goods around their warehouses and bring them to the humans who pack them. Ocado's entire business model is based on the use of warehouses run by robots, but the company has expanded its use to go beyond just picking products out of crates and putting them into shoppers' bags and into vans. It's starting to expand.
One Irish retailer recently introduced a robot that patrols its stores to monitor out-of-stock items and mispricing, according to the Institute of Grocery Distributors (IGD), and a U.S. retailer is also rolling out the same technology. It is said that they have been able to increase their inventory level to 98.5%.
artificial intelligence
IGD also cited AI-powered cameras, which check shelf gaps in real time and monitor how shoppers interact with products, as one of the key technologies to improve store operations this year. There is. Last year, Morrisons added cameras to supermarket shelves that allow customers to reorder stock if needed.
Retailers also want to reduce waste and improve marketing efforts by using AI to analyze vast amounts of data and handle simple, repetitive tasks.
Sainsbury's has introduced an AI-enabled predictive tool to ensure it has the right amount of products on its shelves as part of a £1bn cost-cutting plan. Waitrose uses this technology to schedule the right workers for deliveries from stores and analyze food trends for product development. Meanwhile, M&S uses the technology to create product descriptions online and advise shoppers on clothing choices based on their body type and style preferences.
Tesco uses AI to make purchasing decisions and optimize routes for delivery drivers. The supermarket's CEO Ken Murphy said customer interactions will be “truly enhanced and driven by AI in almost every aspect of our business.”
He uses this to analyze shoppers' loyalty card data and learn how to save money and take care of their health by not buying too much (or perhaps too much) of certain products. suggested it could provide “relevant inspiration and ideas for shoppers and their families.” .
A class action lawsuit has been filed by independent British retailers against Amazon, seeking £1 billion in damages. They claim that Amazon is pushing them out of the online market.
Around 35,000 merchants are part of the lawsuit, led by the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira). They allege that from October 2015 to the present, Amazon used non-public data from retailers to launch its own competing products.
The lawsuit also highlights how Amazon’s “Buy Box” aims to direct shoppers away from independent retailers to its own products, further hurting the market competition.
Bira claims that Amazon already charges a non-negotiable 30% commission on every item sold on the site and has unfairly injected cheaper products into the market, driving many independent UK retailers out of business.
The group plans to submit over 1,150 pages of documents outlining their case against Amazon to the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London.
Amazon has not yet commented on the lawsuit, but has stated in the past that they support over 100,000 small businesses in the UK and that their success is tied to the success of the businesses they work with.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority began investigating Amazon in 2022 for potentially giving its own brands and affiliated brands an unfair advantage over third-party sellers, following reports of data misuse.
The investigation concluded with Amazon agreeing to give independent sellers a fair opportunity to be featured in the site’s “buy box” and to refrain from using marketplace data from third-party sellers to gain an unfair competitive edge.
Amazon also made a similar commitment in December 2022, subject to an EU investigation.
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