Protect Revenue, Preserve Trust: A Case for Offline Storage

Retail has seen rapid growth in recent years - especially online - making it an increasingly attractive target for cyber threats. System outages and cyberattacks are no longer rare; they’ve become operational hazards. From ransomware crippling e-commerce platforms to unexpected POS failures shutting down physical stores, disruptions are hitting retailers across the board. As digital systems have become central to daily operations, so too has the risk of downtime - and the consequences are costly: lost revenue, customer churn, operational delays, and reputational damage. In this environment, ensuring uninterrupted access to critical data - even when online systems fail - is no longer optional, it’s a non-negotiable part of modern retail strategy.

Marks & Spencer’s recent history offers a clear warning to the wider retail sector. In 2023, the company experienced a major in-store outage when its point-of-sale (POS) systems went down, and just two years later, in 2025, M&S was hit by a high-profile cyberattack that brought down its website, app, and core services. While M&S has a robust digital infrastructure, both incidents exposed the business risks of over-reliance in online systems without sufficient offline resilience. Their story underscores a critical point for all retailers: downtime doesn’t just affect the moment — it carries long-term financial, operational, and reputational costs. Investing in offline data storage and continuity planning isn’t just a technical decision — it’s a strategic safeguard against the next disruption.

In 2023, Marks & Spencer suffered a major outage that disrupted its website, mobile app, and loyalty programme. The incident was caused by a failure at a third-party technical service provider, which temporarily disabled key digital services for several hours. Customers were unable to shop online, access their loyalty rewards, or manage orders - a significant blow during a high-traffic trading period. Though the outage was not due to a cyberattack, the incident exposed how reliant modern retailers have become on external digital infrastructure. For a brand like M&S, which had been heavily investing in digital transformation, the failure highlighted a critical operational vulnerability.

While the company restored services later the same day, the short-lived disruption still carried measurable costs. M&S reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in missed online sales during the downtime and faced a backlash from customers on social media. More importantly, the incident shook investor confidence, with the company’s market value dipping in the days that followed. Analysts flagged the outage as a reminder of growing technology risk in retail - especially when third-party systems are involved. Even without a direct breach, the event underscored how technical failures can translate into financial, reputational, and shareholder consequences, and why building offline resilience and contingency planning is no longer optional.

Just two years later, in April 2025, Marks & Spencer faced a far more severe disruption - this time it was ransomware cyberattack that significantly impacted both its digital and physical operations. The attack, linked to the DragonForce/Scattered Spider hacking group, crippled the retailer’s website, mobile app, click-and-collect system, and parts of its internal IT infrastructure. Customers were unable to shop online, use contactless payments in stores, or access loyalty features. M&S was forced to temporarily suspend digital services and revert to manual workarounds, creating widespread operational delays and customer dissatisfaction across the UK. The breach reportedly entered through a compromised third-party IT provider, with attackers using SIM-swap and phishing tactics to bypass internal security.

The financial fallout was considerable. M&S reported a £300 million loss in operating profit for the 2025/26 financial year as a direct result of the attack - an unprecedented figure for a UK retailer facing a cyber incident. In addition, over £1 billion was wiped from the company’s market value in the weeks following the breach, as investor confidence dipped sharply. The scale and duration of the disruption - which stretched over several weeks - underscored the growing sophistication of cyberattacks and the consequences of digital over-reliance. For many in the industry, the M&S attack is a case study in why cyber resilience, offline data access, and incident response readiness must be embedded at the core of retail IT strategy - not treated as afterthoughts.

Marks & Spencer’s digital disruptions in 2023 and 2025 highlight a clear and urgent truth for modern retailers - digital dependence without offline resilience is a strategic risk! In 2023, a failure at a third-party provider brought down M&S’s online services and loyalty programme, causing temporary but widespread customer disruption. Then in 2025, a large-scale ransomware attack forced the company to suspend digital operations for weeks, resulting in hundreds of millions in lost profit and long-term brand damage. In both cases, operations stalled because critical systems were too centralised — and inaccessible during outages.

Since Marks & Spencer’s two high-profile incidents, multiple other UK and global retailers have also been hit by system outages and cyberattacks, from ransomware crippling e-commerce operations to cloud dependency halting store-level sales. These ongoing disruptions reinforce the need for offline data storage and local failover systems as part of a broader business continuity strategy.

With key operational information - such as product data, pricing, POS transactions, and customer orders - stored locally and securely, stores can continue to trade, process payments, and serve customers even when central systems fail. Offline systems don’t just mitigate the impact of cyberattacks or connectivity failures, they buy time, preserve revenue, maintain customer trust, and enable faster recovery. For any retailer serious about resilience and long-term performance, offline data storage is no longer optional, it’s essential!

We have a wide range of products that can suit those on a budget, with some of our hardware encrypted products starting at only £49, to desktop drives holding up to 26 TB to store both your personal and company’s most vital data in an ultra-secure, offline device.

Our datAshur PRO+C flash drive holds the distinction of being the world’s sole flash drive that has received the FIPS 140-3 Level 3 certification! It is a user-friendly USB 3.2 (Gen 1) Type-C flash drive (Type-C to Type-A adapter included) that combines ease of use with top-level security measures. It employs PIN protection and hardware encryption to safeguard your data to military-grade standards. Available in various capacities ranging from 32GB to 512GB, this innovative device ensures your information remains secure.

Our diskAshur3 range boasts the most advanced security features, recently passed the CAVP (Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program) testing as part of the FIPS 140-3 Level 3 validation scheme that the products are currently being evaluated against. This includes three encryption modes (patent pending), and user-configurable PINs ranging from 8 to 64 digits. The new range incorporates all the essential features of other iStorage products such as ease of use, platform independence and tamper-proof sleek designs.

Our latest products from Kanguru deliver a wide range of flash drives, hard drives, SSDs, NVMe and other ideal data storage products. Whether you are looking for the best military NATO grade, FIPS Certified, TAA Compliant, GDPR hardware encryption products and remote management for your high security organisation, or just a simple data storage solution for the home, Kanguru has many flexible options to choose from. Kanguru also specialises in duplicators for Hard Drives, SSD, NVMe, DVD, Blu-ray and USB duplication for all types of cloning jobs whether extensive, simple one-offs, or with secure erase for meeting GDPR standards.

If you are looking to take control of your data, speak to one of our company representatives now to see what would be best for you.

You may also be interested in