Marks & Spencer still unable to accept online orders more than a week after cyber attack

More than a week since customers first reported problems at high street chain M&S, the retailer is still battling with the effects of a "cyber incident" that caused widespread disruption across their stores and online shop.

Speaking to ITV News on Monday, a spokesperson for the retailer confirmed the chain was still experiencing disruption although services in store have now been restored.

At the time of writing customers were still unable to place orders online.

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The first reports of a problem came over Easter weekend with shoppers saying they were struggling to use gift cards, contactless payments and click & collect.

On Tuesday the retailer confirmed this was due to a "cyber incident" which they were working hard to resolve.

On Friday M&S announced they were pausing online orders as they continued to work on fixing the issue.

The ongoing disruption comes amid reports the retailer has asked agency staff at it's East Midlands distribution centre not to come in to work, as well as locking out all remote-working employees from their IT systems.

ITV News understands M&S employees are still working at the Castle Donington distribution centre.

Last week, cyber security expert Rob Pritchard, told ITV News that the extent of the attack meant they were "probably busy trying to get to a root cause, work out exactly what the attackers have access to and ensure they rescinded said access across each system."

M&S is yet to confirm the cause of the cyber attack, but Mr Pritchard says large scale disruptions against individual organisations are typically caused by ransomware.

Ransomware attacks involve malicious software encrypting a user's data and demanding a "ransom payment" to "unlock" the files.

The retailer's shares have fallen 8% in the last five days as investors react to the attack.

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