The UK’s largest retailer, supermarket titan Tesco, has restored its online operations after an attack hack left its customers unable to order, amend, or cancel deliveries for two days.

A Tesco statement acknowledges disruption to the giant’s grocery website and app, claiming “an attempt was made to interfere with our systems, which has caused problems with the search function on the site.”

The gigantic grocer has also said there’s no reason to believe customer data is or was at risk.

In the late hours of Sunday night, the grocer tweeted that all had been restored:

Our groceries website and app are back up and running.

To help us manage the high volume we’re temporarily using a virtual waiting room.

We’re really sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience. pic.twitter.com/OxgJeCdiZy

— Tesco (@Tesco) October 24, 2021

Customers rushed that waiting room in the hope of making the cutoff time for amendments to their orders, but many were hacked off (pun intended) as they desperately tried to get their order in by midnight. Many ended up relying on competitors like Asda or Sainsbury’s.

Over the past 12 months, Tesco [PDF] more than doubled its regular app user base to 6.6 million and filled 1.27 million orders per week. Online orders make up 14.6 per cent of Tesco’s UK sales.

This isn’t the first time Tesco has fallen victim to an attack on its systems. Back in 2014, thousands of customers had their emails and passwords posted online. Worse yet, their vouchers went missing from their accounts following a data breach.

Two years later, Tesco’s banking arm lost £2.5 million belonging to 9,000 users.

This weekend’s incident has gone down predictably badly:

If crucial IT Systems were down at my employer for 2 days without updating users like at @Tesco this weekend, then all the IT staff would be facing the sack. Has nobody there heard of backups and rehearsed disaster recovery? #tescodown #shambolic

— BaldTony (@BaldTony66) October 24, 2021

Earlier this month, The UK appointed former Tesco CEO Sir David Lewis to act as the government’s supply chain adviser. In the wake of this incident, The Register is relieved to know a Tesco exec hasn’t been appointed as security adviser. ®