Asos Shares Slide 11% as Cyber Incident Reaches Customers

Asos (LON: ASC), the online fashion retailer, saw its shares fall about 11% today after an unauthorised notification reached customers around 10am. The company later confirmed the incident in a stock exchange announcement and said basic personal details may have been accessed.

The shares were at 445.36p at 3.56pm, down 11.28% from yesterday’s close of 502p. That is a quote before the 4.30pm close, not a final price. The day’s range ran from 426.5p to 507p, on 4,124,631 shares traded against 178,383 for the whole of yesterday.

Asos issued its announcement at about 3.15pm. It said it is investigating unauthorised activity involving third-party platforms, the outside software it uses to message customers, and has restricted access to the notification platforms. It is working with specialist advisers and “all relevant authorities”. The customer message claimed data had been compromised and threatened a leak, but the announcement itself mentions no hackers and no ransom.

Asos said name and contact details may have been accessed, but that it does not believe payment-card details or account passwords were affected. It gave no number of affected customers, though it describes itself as having 16.5m active customers in over 100 markets. The website and app are running normally, and Asos has cyber insurance with a large global provider, including business continuity cover for lost income during disruption.

Yesterday’s 502p close sat near the top of the range since July, after a climb from 430p before the 24th of September. Today’s price is roughly back at that starting level, in line with where the shares traded on 23 September, so most of the rally has been given back while the cost remains unknown.

On the financial impact, the company said:

It is too early to quantify any potential impact on trading.

ASOS PLC

Asos added that customer trust is “incredibly important” to it, and that if the situation changes it will provide an update as appropriate.