Thousands of ASOS customers in Ireland and the UK have received a warning through the retailer’s mobile app claiming the company has been hacked.
The alert, which appeared on customers’ phones today under the heading “ASOS HACKED”, directed recipients to a Telegram account and contained a threatening message aimed at the company’s data protection and IT teams.
“Dear ASOS DPO and IT, we have full compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it,” the message stated.
The incident sent shares in ASOS falling by more than 10% during trading this morning.
Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform used by businesses to store, manage and analyse information. If the alleged breach involved customer data, it could potentially expose personal information such as names, email addresses and account details.
The use of ASOS’s own customer notification system to distribute the message is particularly unusual, as such systems are generally used for marketing, delivery updates and other direct communications with customers.
Irish customers have confirmed receiving the alert, while the retailer has been contacted for further information about the incident.
ASOS has yet to publicly confirm whether its systems have been compromised or whether customer information has been accessed.
The reported incident comes amid a wider wave of cyberattacks targeting major UK retailers. Companies including Marks & Spencer and Harrods have previously been affected by cyber incidents in recent years.
It also marks the second reported cyber incident involving ASOS within a matter of months.
In July, the online fashion retailer disclosed a cyber incident affecting approximately 138,000 customers.
ASOS operates across around 150 markets and has approximately 17 million customers globally. The company does not publish a specific figure for its Irish customer base, although the Irish market has previously been identified by the retailer as one of its strongest-performing European markets.
The latest incident is expected to raise further questions over the security of customer data and the circumstances surrounding the alleged access to ASOS systems.
The company has been asked to clarify whether the message was sent as a result of a genuine cyberattack and whether any customer information has been compromised.
