By Wynna Wong

Copyright scmp

Convenience store chain Circle K has confirmed it was the victim of a cyberattack in Hong Kong and apologised to affected customers, a week after it suspended accepting electronic payments.
Circle K Hong Kong on Friday night also said the company’s IT and cybersecurity teams, along with independent cybersecurity experts, were still working to restore services, stressing the situation was now “under control”, with investigations underway.
The chain first announced last Saturday that its electronic payments, except via Octopus, had been disrupted across its 400 stores in Hong Kong, and confirmed the next day that it was suffering from network issues. It said at the time that it could not rule out a possible cyberattack.
In a statement on Friday night, a company spokesman confirmed that the incident was caused by a network attack and apologised to affected customers, but did not state whether any customer data had been compromised.
The company said that while all stores remained open for business, electronic payments and some services such as parcel collection, e-wallet top-ups, bill payments and its member rewards programme remained unavailable.
Octopus card-related services and cash transactions were, however, still available.
The chain also said it had notified law enforcement about the incident.
Over the past week, customers flooded Circle K’s social media pages with complaints about the company’s slowness in fixing the problem.
“It’s been days since the incident, how could such a large company take so long to fix a network issue?” one person questioned.

Another said: “While it’s understandable that you can’t resolve your network issues immediately, could you please provide an update to customers waiting for your services regarding any contingency plans?”
“For example, for the parcel collection service, can you arrange a manual process where staff check the tracking number to release the package to the customer? Or should we contact the courier company to arrange for the item to be rerouted and picked up elsewhere?”
Some were also concerned about whether the stamps they had collected would still be valid for redeeming cartoon gift products, and urged Circle K to clarify whether the redemption period would be extended.