People may be unable to get some of their favourite snacks in stores after major manufacturer KP Snacks was hit by a ransomware attack.
Popular crisps such as McCoys’s, Hula Hoops, Tyrell’s, Space Raiders, Skips, Butterkist, Pom-Bears, Nik-Naks are among some of the tasty treats affected as well as KP Nuts.
A message sent to local shops and published by industry news outlet Better Retailing claimed that deliveries could face delays and cancellations up until "the end of March at the earliest".
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The letter from KP Snacks said: "After the initial investigation of an IT outage and the communications on Friday 28th January, with regret, we are now able to confirm that we have been victims of a cyber-attack and our systems have been compromised by ransomware.
"Through the weekend our IT Team and third party experts have been assessing the scale of the intrusion and continue to do so.
"As a result, at this stage we cannot safely process orders or dispatch goods."
They added that they have teams working on the issue but are unsure of when a resolution will be put into place.
The latest disruption to the crisps and snacks category follows IT issues at rivals Walkers in October, resulting in gaps on shelves that lasted through to the end of December.
At the time KP Snacks said it had ‘maximised’ production in order to help maintain sales.
What is a ransomware attack?
McAfee, a computer security software company, said: "Ransomware is malware that employs encryption to hold a victim’s information at ransom.
"A user or organisation’s critical data is encrypted so that they cannot access files, databases, or applications. A ransom is then demanded to provide access.
"Ransomware is often designed to spread across a network and target database and file servers, and can thus quickly paralyse an entire organisation."
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