Safeway hacked in email raid

Take your shopping to Tesco

By Drew Cullen, 14th August 2000

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Safeway, the British supermarket chain, had its email server cracked on Friday.

More than 1,000 customers complained to the company by telephone after receiving a "rude email", apparently sent from info@safeway.co.uk, informing them of a 25 per cent price increase. And if they didn't like that, then they should "piss off to another supermarket chain such as Tesco or Sainsbury".

This sounds almost plausible from a British retailer (Safeway used to be owned by the American company of the same name, but cut loose several years ago).

Safeway informs by email 25,000 customers of special offers. In an apology sent to these customers by email on Saturday evening, the company said: "At this stage of our investigations we are confident that the no personal information was accessed".

The first step for the company will be to check whether
a disaffected employee is responsible for the email; then it's an audit of the security systems to see how it got taken for such an easy ride. ®

The Safeway apology

----- Original Message -----
From: Safeway <feedback@safeway.co.uk>
To: <safe@linas.f9.co.uk>
Sent: 12 August 2000 18:04
Subject: Important Statement

Dear (name deleted)

You may have received an e-mail recently that appeared to have come from Safeway. If you did please read the following statement.

Safeway can confirm that a small number of our customers have received a hoax e-mail which claims to have been issued by Safeway. The e-mail was sent late last night. Safeway would like to make it clear that this was not issued by the company and the information it contained was entirely false.

We appreciate that if you received this e-mail you might have been concerned and annoyed. We sincerely apologise for any upset caused and would like to reassure you that we are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this. At this stage of our investigations we are confident that the no personal information was accessed.

Safeway values your custom dearly and we will continue to bring you fantastic, deep cut, price deals every week in our flyers, as well as the best fresh products, best customer service and best product availability.

Sincerest apologies,
The Safeway Team.

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