M&S betting on customer patience as cyber-attack threatens to ruin 2025’s strong start

One analyst said the incident was ‘one of the most damaging cyber-attacks on a major UK retailer we have seen’. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Marks & Spencer was enjoying a strong start to 2025 thanks to a fashion revival and the warm spring weather. That has now been seriously undermined as the retailer scrambles to deal with disruption caused by a massive cyber-attack it first revealed a week ago.

At a time when M&S – alongside most big retailers – are pushing more automation on its customers and workers, industry insiders say the retailer’s staff have been forced to return to pens, paper and clipboards to check stock in stores as internal systems have been put on hold.