London Drugs says customers’ data not compromised in cyberattack

London Drugs says there is “no evidence of any customer databases being compromised,” following a reported cyberattack over the weekend.

Stores remain temporarily closed for the fifth day in a row, while the retail chain says it is continues to “work with leading third-party cybersecurity experts to bring operations back online.”

The release says, “The impact of the [cyberattack] incident on operations has been significant, and the restoration process is rigorous,” explaining the company’s teams are reviewing billions of lines of code.

But the company insists there is no evidence that customers, pharmacy patients, and ‘LDExtras members’ have been affected by the attack.

“We are determining if we can reopen with partial services in order to take care of customers sooner, particularly our pharmacy customers,” said Clint Mahlman, London Drugs president and COO, in a release Thursday.

The chain restored its phone lines Thursday morning, pharmacists remain on-site in all store locations to assist with emergency prescription needs, and Canada Post offices within stores remain open.

An assistant professor of marketing at UBC believes that so far, it looks like the incident will cost London Drugs up to $20 million.

“There’s the direct loss of sales from stoppage of regular business, there’s the cost of identifying and notifying the impacted individuals, potentially offering redress and there’s the cost of investigating and auditing cybersecurity issues,” said Eddie Ning, assistant professor, marketing and behavioral science at the UBC Sauder School of Business

There are 81 London Drugs locations nationwide, all in Western Canada.

With files from Monika Gul.