Swan Retail cyberattack knocks around 300 UK independent retailers offline

Swan Retail, a UK supplier of point of sale, stock control and back office software, was hit by a cyberattack on Sunday, August 13, 2023 that took its systems offline and disrupted trading for around 300 independent retailers.

The company's customers span fashion, homewares, furniture, department stores, garden centres, sports and outdoor retailers, pet shops and stadiums. Retail Week, which first reported the outage on August 17, said the attack caused technical difficulties with some of Swan's back office systems and affected retailers' ability to trade online and fulfil orders.

A Swan Retail spokesperson said the business had "experienced a criminal cyberattack incident causing significant disruption to our services and impacting some of our customers' businesses," and that it was working around the clock on recovery while liaising with law enforcement. The company said there was no evidence that payment processing had been affected.

Swan Retail, owned by software group ClearCourse since November 2020, did not say what type of attack it had suffered or whether any data was taken. Law enforcement, Action Fraud and the National Cyber Security Centre were involved in the investigation. The company began resuming online services from around August 21, though its systems remained partly offline when the incident was reported.