Meet the Night Workers Battling M&S Cyberattack Chaos
Marks & Spencer’s West End store in Partick has been hit by a cyberattack, causing major disruption overnight.
While most of Glasgow sleeps, nightshift workers like Jak Parker are fighting to restore normality at Marks & Spencer’s West End store after a major cyberattack hit the retailer this week. The attack, which targeted M&S systems across the UK, has caused widespread disruption, leaving teams working through the night to keep operations running.
Jak Parker, nightshift team manager at the Partick store, told Glasgow After Dark the problems became clear almost immediately.
"Straight away, our store manager gathered us for a team brief," Mr Parker said. "We were told M&S was under a cyberattack and we were working with Microsoft to fix it. Deliveries couldn’t be checked in, contactless payments were down, and our click and collect systems had stopped working."
The normally smooth overnight operations ground to a halt, with staff forced to abandon digital systems and switch to manual work.
"Our click and collect parcels are arriving in big boxes and we can't scan them or give them out," he said. "In terms of food deliveries, we get about 10,000 trays overnight — each holding five to twenty items. That’s a huge amount of stock sitting unaccounted for."
Instead of relying on automated systems to monitor sell-by dates, Jak and his team are now manually checking hundreds of products each night — a slow and stressful task.
"As a nightshift worker, I don't usually deal directly with customers," Mr Parker said. "But even from the back of the store, we’re feeling the pressure. There have been a lot of complaints about gift cards not working, parcels delayed, and contactless payments failing."
To help manage the disruption, a member of staff has been stationed at the entrance, even during early hours, to explain the situation to customers and advise on where to withdraw cash. Despite the ongoing issues, staff have been reassured that no customer data has been compromised.
"We've been told there’s been no data leaks, which helps lower the stress slightly," Mr Parker added. "It’s obviously a very stressful time for M&S. But I’m proud of how the team is handling it. We’ve faced system failures before — we’ll get through it again."
In a message to customers, M&S Chief Executive Stuart Machin said:
"I know how much our customers trust M&S, and that trust is incredibly precious to us. We have been working hard with the best experts to manage this, and I want to thank them and my colleagues for their hard work."
M&S also confirmed that while stores remain open and products can still be browsed online, online and app orders have been paused temporarily.
"Our experienced team — supported by leading cyber experts — is working extremely hard to restart online and app shopping," the company said in a statement.
For Jak and his nightshift team, the job of restoring order continues unseen — working through the dark hours to keep the store running for morning.