Japanese e-tailer Askul has resumed online sales, 45 days after a ransomware attack.

Askul operates several e-commerce brands serving both consumers and business buyers, plus logistics services used by other consumer brands including Muji. Its own site serves smaller businesses, while its SOLOEL ARENA brand targets corporate procurement customers. Its Lohaco brand, a consumer goods site, even has a tie-up with Yahoo Japan.

On October 19, the company found itself infected by ransomware and the next day advised it couldn’t accept orders or ship products. On October 22 the company said its Warehouse Management System was the problem, which meant it had to suspend its logistics services.

On October 30th, the company revealed the attack led to a major data breach, with customers’ names and contact details leaked. Some of that data appeared online. ASKUL acknowledged that, apologized, set up a cloudy email service to communicate with customers and used that send messages saying it hadn’t seen evidence of stolen personal data being abused.

By the first week of November, Askul started a fax ordering service. The company started with just 37 items, with the hero product being box-loads of printer paper, and would only sell to certain customers such as medical institutions and nursing care facilities. The fax scheme later expanded to more products, then added more distribution centers.

On November 19, the company addressed the nature of the attack – by announcing “We will refrain from disclosing detailed information regarding the ransomware. At present, we are continuing with in-depth log analysis, monitoring for anomalies, and conducting a detailed investigation into the cause and scope of the disruption.”

Today, December 3rd, the company said work to restore its Warehouse Management System – with improved security, natch – was complete and it was ready to again offer online orders.

But the company had only restored its B2B services, with delivery times a few days longer than it offered before the ransomware attack. Askul’s consumer businesses will come back once it has bedded down its B2B ops.

That means companies which, like Muji, use Askul’s logistics services remain unable to accept orders. The one tiny bit of upside in the situation is that Christmas shopping isn’t a major thing in Japan.

This incident has hit Askul hard: On Monday the company advised investors it’s unable to put together its quarterly results in time for a planned December 15 announcement because it needs “additional time … to assess the extent of the damage and related matters.” The company didn’t say when it expects to resume all online sales or deliver results.

The incident is broadly comparable to the ransomware attack on British retailer Marks & Spencer, which cost it £136 million ($177.2 million) to clean up and saw profits slump.

Askul will have a similar bill to pay, and it may well be larger because the company’s initial outage ran for a few days more than Marks & Spencer’s, and full recovery also looks like it will take longer.

Has there ever been a more important time to be utterly sure your disaster recovery systems work? ®