Adidas suspends websites following sophisticated cyber attack

Adidas has suffered a serious cyber-attack causing the sports company to suspend access to many of its websites. The company believes consumers' personal data is safe.

Sportswear giant Adidas has suffered what it described as “a sophisticated, criminal cyber-attack.”

It learned of the attack on Thursday last week although following a preliminary investigation it believes no personal data belonging to consumers has been stolen.

A statement released by the German company on Sunday said it had taken down several of the affected sites, including adidas.com, reebok.com, miCoach.com, adidas-group.com, while it continues with its investigation.

Adidas also said that as soon as it discovered the cyber-attack, it implemented a number of measures to bolster security.

“Nothing is more important to us than the privacy and security of our consumers’ personal data. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this time,” the statement said.

At the time of writing, the adidas.com and miCoach.com websites were both still down, although information about the situation had been posted. “At this stage we are targeting to have the site up and running again by the end of day (US Eastern Time) Tuesday 8th November,” the miCoach.com website said. The adidas.com site pointed users to its e-commerces sites, though no doubt many online shoppers will be keen to hear more details about the recent security breach before giving their credit card details to the sportswear company.

At this stage there is still little information regarding the precise nature of the attack or who might be responsible.

The incident comes in a year that has seen many high profile online security breaches, including those suffered by Sony, Citibank and the Pentagon.