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- 📈 Online Chaos as M&S Gets Hacked
📈 Online Chaos as M&S Gets Hacked
Astrato Raises £4M to Banish BI Blahs
This is Cliff Equity, the UK’s business newsletter that keeps you informed on what’s important in tech, business and finance in less than 5 minutes
In today’s stories:
Online Chaos as M&S Gets Hacked
Astrato Raises £4M to Banish BI Blahs
Spain & Portugal Go Dark, Lights Return!
The summary: M&S has taken a digital tumble thanks to a major cyber-attack, leaving online orders in chaos, party cakes MIA, and Ocado shelves a tad barer—yet it’s all hands on deck to sort the tech tangle and keep the Percy Pigs marching on.
The details:
Cyber-snag strikes again: M&S’s tech troubles continue as a whopper of a cyber-attack forces a halt to online orders and delays some Ocado food deliveries—because apparently, even Percy Pigs aren’t safe these days.
£500m down and counting: With websites frozen, gift cards misbehaving, and party food in disarray, the high street darling has seen its market value take a half-billion-pound nosedive.
Castle Donington goes quiet: Around 200 agency staff at the main distribution hub were sent home, while shoppers are told to wait patiently (and preferably not turn up 18 miles early) for those elusive “ready to collect” emails.
No customer data nicked (yet): M&S assures us there’s no need to panic, unless you're planning a wedding or prom and your cake’s just ghosted you—meanwhile, cyber experts are now in full MI5 mode trying to clean up the mess.
Why it matters: M&S’s cyber-saga shows that even heritage brands aren’t immune to digital drama—one hack and suddenly your knickers and Colin the Caterpillar cake are stuck in limbo. With millions in daily online sales vanishing and shoppers fuming over phantom orders, it’s a stark reminder that tech resilience is now as vital as a good meal deal. And while no customer data’s gone walkies (yet), the reputational bruising might linger longer than a yellow-sticker discount at closing time.
The summary: Astrato’s giving dusty old BI tools the boot with a breezy, no-code, cloud-native platform that lets teams dive into live data, whip up insights, and actually enjoy doing it — all without breaking the bank or calling IT every five minutes.
The details:
Death to dashboards: Astrato’s cloud-native BI platform bins off legacy clunkware by letting teams analyse live data straight from the warehouse — no more exporting, IT faff, or outdated spreadsheets pretending to be insights.
Fresh from the funding fairy: With $5 million in seed funding led by Big Pi Ventures and a flurry of analytics-savvy angels, Astrato’s gearing up to sprinkle AI magic across its no-code analytics arsenal.
No-code, all power: It’s like Lego for grown-ups — modular, intuitive, and deadly serious about data security (ISO and SOC2 certified, thank you very much). Even your marketing team could build something useful.
Startups to enterprises, sorted: Whether you're a lean team or a data-hungry giant, Astrato’s pay-as-you-go model and embedded insights mean you’ll look smarter without paying through the nose for it.
Why it matters: Legacy BI tools are about as useful as a chocolate teapot in today’s fast-paced data world — slow, siloed, and constantly begging IT for help. Astrato flips the script with a slick, cloud-native platform that serves up real-time insights without the data faff, coding headache, or budget-busting licences. It’s like swapping your dad’s old flip phone for a sleek smartphone — faster, smarter, and surprisingly easy to use.
The summary: A massive blackout left Spain and Portugal scrambling, but thanks to some quick fixes and international teamwork, the lights came back on, reminding us all just how much we rely on the grid — and how quickly we can adapt when the power's out!
The details:
Iberia Unplugged: A mysterious mega-blackout plunged Spain and Portugal into chaos — lifts jammed, trains stopped, mobiles dead, and even the tennis was cancelled. A nation’s nightmare, one torchlight stumble at a time.
No One’s Owning Up: Portugal reckons Spain’s to blame, Spain’s saying “let’s not speculate”, and meanwhile the culprit might just be an overly dramatic weather tantrum causing “atmospheric vibrations”. Sounds like nature needs a lie down.
From Gridlock to Grid-on: Power was mostly back by Tuesday thanks to heroic grid wrangling, emergency generators, and a bit of backup juice from France and Morocco. Supermarkets resumed scanning things; applause broke out in the streets.
Aftermath & Awkward Questions: With millions affected, thousands stranded, and even the Guardia Civil called in, officials are promising answers — but for now, no one really knows what the hell happened. Classic.
Why it matters: Well, it seems a couple of countries just got a very abrupt reminder of how dependent we all are on electricity — and how quickly everything goes sideways when it flickers out. The outage, despite the best efforts of tech and power operators, highlighted just how fragile our shiny, interconnected world really is. And, let’s be honest, we’ll all think twice before complaining about the next train delay — at least we won’t be stuck in a pitch-black tunnel for hours.
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