Ahold Delhaize, the retail group behind Albert Heijn, Delhaize Belgium, Stop & Shop and Food Lion, took some systems offline after what it described as a security issue within its network. Stores remain open, but online and internal services are disrupted across several countries.
Ahold Delhaize Confirms a Network Security Issue After Sunday Disruption
The disruption began on Sunday afternoon in the Netherlands, and the company confirmed the problem on Monday. Ahold Delhaize said it is “experiencing a security issue within its network” and is taking some systems offline as mitigation work continues. The company apologized to customers.
The company declined to say whether devices were encrypted or whether corporate systems, store systems, or both were affected. No group has claimed responsibility, and the nature of the attack has not been disclosed. Data exposure is unknown.
Albert Heijn Websites, Apps and Home Deliveries Go Dark
Albert Heijn took its websites, apps, customer service and online deliveries offline. Loyalty systems stopped working, and Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that some electronic shelf labels showed the previous week’s promotional prices. The effects reached Belgium as well, where online grocery and loyalty operations were down in both the Netherlands and Belgium.
Other group brands named as affected include Etos, Gall & Gall and Delhaize Belgium. For shoppers, the practical result is that physical stores kept trading while the digital layer around them, including ordering, delivery and rewards, stopped.
Stop & Shop and Food Lion Staff Lose Access to Internal Tools
The disruption extended to the group’s US banners. Stop & Shop employees could not access their work schedules and pay stubs. A Food Lion memo described the situation as an IT outage and warned that stores might be unable to shop, stage or hand off orders, which are the steps that support online order fulfillment and pickup.
The two US reports point to a problem that reaches beyond a single regional web platform, though the company has not said how its systems are connected or which ones were switched off. Because Food Lion described the event internally as an IT outage rather than a cyberattack, the public wording across the group’s brands is not uniform.
Scale of Ahold Delhaize Raises the Stakes for the Outage
Ahold Delhaize operates more than 9,400 stores, employs nearly 400,000 people and serves about 60 million customers weekly. Its 2024 net sales exceeded $104 billion. A shutdown of even a subset of its systems therefore touches a very large customer base, even when stores stay open.
Earlier INC Ransom Breach Exposed 2.2 Million People in November 2024
The group has been breached before. The INC Ransom gang stole data on more than 2.2 million people in November 2024. Ahold Delhaize has not said whether the current incident involves ransomware or the same actor, and no public claim has appeared that would let observers tie the two events together.
Separate From the French Danfoss Refrigeration Attack
The timing coincides with a separate attack that hijacked Danfoss refrigeration controllers at French supermarkets, but there is no evidence linking the two. The French incident involved remote manipulation of cooling equipment at retailers that do not belong to the Ahold Delhaize group, while the Ahold Delhaize disruption concerns the company’s own network and digital services.
Several questions will determine how serious the incident turns out to be: whether customer or employee data was accessed, how long the online services stay down, and whether a threat group steps forward with a claim. Until Ahold Delhaize provides details, the confirmed facts are limited to the offline systems, the disruption to Albert Heijn’s digital services, and the internal outages reported at its US chains.
