Ace Hardware cyberattack downs 1,202 devices and halts online orders

Ace Hardware, a retailer-owned cooperative with more than 5,600 independently operated stores in around 70 countries, detected a cyberattack on the morning of Sunday, October 29, 2023. The intrusion took down a large share of the co-op's core technology and left member stores without several of the systems they use to order and track inventory.

Affected systems included ACENET, the warehouse management systems, the Ace Retailer Mobile Assistant application, Hot Sheets, invoicing, the Ace Rewards loyalty program and the phone system for the company's care center. Shipments to retailers were cancelled on October 30 and 31 and online ordering was suspended. Ace said in-store point of sale terminals and credit card processing were not known to be affected.

Chief executive John Venhuizen told retailers that 1,202 of the company's roughly 3,500 networked devices were hit, including 196 of its 1,400 servers. In an update on November 2 he said 51 percent of those servers had been restored and were being certified by the IT department, and he described the attackers as criminals in a message framing the incident as a battle of good versus evil.

Ace also warned retailers that fraudsters were exploiting the outage, sending phishing emails that redirected payments to attacker-controlled accounts and impersonating software contractors to solicit network credentials. As of early November the company had not said publicly what kind of attack it was or whether any data had been taken.