£136 million - not just the cost of any cyber-attack; this is the cost of the M&S cyber-attack (so far)

What price a cyber-crisis? There’s been a lot of speculation about how bad an impact the notorious hacker attack on UK retail bellwether Marks & Spencer (M&S) would have on its bottom line, with estimates of losses of £300 million in trade.

But it took until today to get a final figure for the real scale of the fiscal damage that the worst crisis in M&S’s 144 history would inflict and while it’s not as bad as many doomsayers were predicting, it’s been enough to essentially wipe out profit at the half-year point of the current fiscal year.

The direct cost attributed to the attack has come in at £136 million, taking pre-tax profit down to £3.4 million from £391.9 million this time last year. About £100 million is being claimed back in insurance, according to M&S. Physical stores made an operating profit ...