London Drugs begins to gradually reopen stores after cyberattack

London Drugs is gradually reopening its stores across Western Canada, six days after it shuttered all loca‐ tions due to a "cybersecu‐ rity incident," the retail and pharmacy chain said.

It is working with its near‐ ly 80 stores in British Colum‐ bia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba individually to get them up and running, said the retailer, headquar‐ tered in Richmond, a subur‐ ban city about 16 kilometres south of Vancouver.

"We ask for patience as we work with each store to ensure it is operating fully to meet the needs of our cus‐ tomers, and therefore we will not be communicating which stores are opening and when," London Drugs said in a Saturday statement. "No in‐ terviews will be conducted at this time."

"We are continuing to work with our third-party cy‐ bersecurity experts to bring our systems online in a safe and secure manner," the company said.

Pharmacists are available at all stores for emergency prescription and urgent care needs, and Canada Post of‐ fices located within stores are also open, according to London Drugs.

Customers in need of pharmacy help are asked to visit stores in person for as‐ sistance. The Insurance Ser‐ vices Call Centre is also open to assist clients.

"We are grateful for the patience and support of our customers and suppliers as we work to bring all services and systems at our stores back to full operation follow‐ ing this cybersecurity inci‐ dent," president and chief operating officer Clint Mahlman said in the state‐ ment.

WATCH | London Drugs locations shuttered by cy‐ berattack:

The company closed all of its stores across Western Canada until further notice after the incident was discov‐ ered on April 28. The retailer‐ s' phone system was also down earlier in the week.

London Drugs is rebuild‐ ing its data infrastructure with the help of third-party experts to bring its opera‐ tions safely back online, ac‐ cording to the statement.

There are billions of lines of data and code to review, the retailer said, adding its teams have been working around the clock and are making progress.

"Any systems we are using have been thoroughly tested for safety and verified by third-party cybersecurity ex‐ perts. We are only turning on systems we have full confi‐ dence are safe and secure."

The company said its in‐ vestigation so far shows no evidence that customer data‐ bases have been compro‐ mised, including for pharma‐ cy patients and its LDExtra members.

It said the impact of the breach on operations has been significant, and the restoration process is rigor‐ ous.