M&S Percy Pig fans left devastated after major cyber attack causes supply chaos

Percy Pig devotees are in a state of shock as a cyber attack on Marks and Spencer has left the high street giant's IT systems in disarray, resulting in a shortage of the beloved pink sweets on store shelves.

The popular treats, with 16 million bags flying off the shelves annually, were conspicuously absent from many outlets yesterday.

The retailer is grappling with the fallout of a severe hack that kicked off over the Easter weekend.

Instead of their usual Percy Pig fix, shoppers were greeted by signs next to nearly bare shelves, stocked only with a few veggie and low-sugar alternatives.

The signs read: "Please bear with us while we fix some technical issues affecting product availability."

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The sweet-toothed fans were far from pleased. One distressed customer took to social media, posting: "Lads, s**t just got real."

Another quipped: "This isn't just a cyber attack - it's an M&S cyber attack.", reports .

The disruption has thrown M&S into turmoil, with insiders revealing that staff have had to resort to manually completing sales reports as computer systems remain offline.

This manual workaround has caused significant disruption across the supply chain.

Not only Percy Pigs, but also other customer favourites like Colin the Caterpillar sweets and cakes, as well as wine, beer, soft drinks and chilled meat, have been missing from the shelves.

A spokesperson for the retailer has verified the shortages, admitting to "pockets of limited availability" across their stores.

This comes after images of empty shelves and missing items - ranging from ready-to-eat chicken to fresh salads and dips - swamped social media.

In response to the crisis, the company is feverishly working with cyber security professionals from the National Cyber Security Centre and Yard to tackle the issue.

The alleged miscreants are identified as Scattered Spider, an Anglophone hacking collective presumed to mainly consist of individuals under 25 years old.

The stakes are rising as faces the reality of bleeding millions in lost online revenue, subsequent to a halt forced on its website and app orders dating back to last Friday.

Services like click and collect and contactless payments have been stopped as well, in an urgent effort to curb the breach's impact.

For regular customers, the sight of barren shelves, coupled with the absence of beloved treats, is a further disappointment they must contend with. An insider gave a rather blunt assessment, stating: "It's chaos. People want Percy Pigs - and we simply don't have them."