Hacking fear as Ocado’s orders soar

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Hacking fear as Ocado’s orders soar amid surge in desperate shoppers scrambling to stockpile essentials

By Daily Mail City & Finance Reporter

Published: | Updated:

The surge in desperate shoppers trying to arrange deliveries from Ocado was so high at one point the company feared it was under attack from hackers. 

The online grocer said sales have risen by around 20 per cent so far in March compared with growth of 10 per cent in the previous three months as customers scramble to stockpile essentials. 

Panic buying: Ocado said sales have risen by around 20 per cent so far in March compared with growth of 10 per cent in the previous three months

Having earlier this week introduced a queuing system for delivery slots, on Wednesday management shut down the website as it faced ‘unprecedented demand’. 

Finance director Duncan TattonBrown said: ‘Our systems thought that they were suffering an attack when people try to close your website down by throwing so much traffic at it. 

This was four times the demand of our highest ever peak. We have had hours in the week where we had 100 times the normal level of transactions on the website. 

‘We’re seeing transactions in less than a day that were greater than a normal week. This is unprecedented levels of demand.’ 

All supermarkets have faced a major rise in demand, with shelves emptied of toilet paper, canned goods and cereals. 

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