Boots Advantage Card payments blocked after cyber attack
Boots Advantage Card has suffered a cyber attack, forcing the chemist to suspend payments using loyalty points.
The cyber attack has affected around 140,000 customers, which Boots said represented less than one per cent of its online users.
Scammers attempted to break into Boots Advantage Card accounts using passwords stolen from other websites, which can be successful if customers use the same security details for multiple accounts.
The chemist has temporarily blocked payments using Advantage Cards to prevent the hackers from stealing customers’ loyalty points.
A Boots spokesperson said: “We would like to reassure our customers that these details were not obtained from Boots.
“We are aware that other organisations may be impacted too.
“As an extra precaution we have temporarily stopped payment by Boots Advantage Card points on boots.com or in store.
“This removes the ability for people to attempt to access any Boots accounts, but means that customers will not be able to use Boots Advantage card points to pay for products in store and online for a short period of time.”
The retailer said that it will replace any Boots Advantage Card points that have been used fraudulently, and recommended that customers use different passwords for each website.
The attack comes days after Tesco Clubcard customers were targeted in a similar scam.
Nick Whiting, head of consultancy at Bulletproof, said: “This attack really emphasises the need for users to be far more savvy about their passwords.
“The hackers simply used existing, known compromised accounts to access the information knowing full well that a lot of people use the same password for all accounts.”