The parent company of the Outer Banks area’s largest grocery store chain acknowledged on Monday that some of their systems were hit by a cyberattack.
However, exact details of the hack of Food Lion’s systems have not been disclosed, or the possible impacts to customers.
Ahold Delhaize USA, which owns and operates Food Lion, recently detected a cybersecurity issue within its U.S. network, according to a company statement issued Monday.
Along with Food Lion, the Dutch-Belgian multinational retail and wholesale holding company also owns Giant Food, The GIANT Company, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop.
“Immediately upon detecting the issue, our security teams began an investigation with the assistance of external cybersecurity experts. We also notified law enforcement,” the company said.
“Our teams are taking steps to assess and mitigate the issue,” according to the statement. “This includes taking some systems offline to help protect them.”
A number of Food Lion stores were unable to process credit or debit cards late last week and were only taking cash, according to posts on social media by customers, and the Food Lion To-Go online application was also down.
Food Lion’s parent company confirmed in Monday’s statement that some pharmacies and e-commerce operations were impacted.
“Each of Ahold Delhaize USA’s brands’ stores are open and serving customers,” the company said in Monday’s statement.
