A cyberattack that started Monday has kept the GIANT Food Stores website and app offline for most of the week, along with sister chains Food Lion, Stop & Shop and Hannaford. The parent company — Ahold Delhaize — says stores are still open, but with Carlisle-based GIANT serving much of central Pennsylvania, this incident hits close to home for York County shoppers and raises the risk of follow-on phishing scams aimed at Windows PC users.
What happened
The website for Giant Food Stores was shut down Monday, following a cyberattack reported by its parent company Ahold Delhaize. The Netherlands-based company said its websites were being taken offline as a precaution after a "cyber security incident" was detected.
The company said its stores — including Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, Delhaize in Belgium and Stop & Shop, Food Lion and Giant in the United States — remained open, but the websites for those brands remained offline. Each chains' website says they are "working to restore service as quickly as possible," adding that customers can still place delivery orders through Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats. Any unfulfilled web and app orders will be refunded.
As of Thursday, the outage was still ongoing. The Giant Co. is taking steps so customers can access digital offers as Giant Food Stores' website and app remained down Thursday following a cyberattack targeting its parent company, Ahold Delhaize.
Was customer data stolen?
So far, the company says no. As of Tuesday, Ahold Delhaize said it does not believe so. "Although our investigation is still ongoing, we have no evidence at this moment that customer, associate and partner data was taken in this cybersecurity incident," the parent company said.
That's cautious language, not a clean bill of health. Ahold Delhaize declined to share details of the incident so as not to "compromise security measures or interfere with our response efforts." Executives said they were working with internal teams and external cybersecurity experts, as well as authorities and other stakeholders "as necessary."
This isn't the first time the company has been hit. This is not the first attack to target Ahold Delhaize and its U.S. brands. Last year, Ahold Delhaize disclosed that more than 2.2 million customers of their U.S. stores were impacted by a November 2024 data breach.
Why this matters for your Windows PC
Any time a well-known brand goes offline, scammers rush to fill the gap. Expect a wave of fake "GIANT account verification," "missed delivery refund," and "your digital coupons expired" emails and text messages over the next few weeks. Click the wrong link and you can end up with a hijacked browser, stolen passwords, or a full ransomware infection that needs professional malware and ransomware cleanup to undo.
A few simple rules keep you safe:
- Don't click links in unsolicited emails or texts claiming to be from GIANT, Food Lion, Stop & Shop or Hannaford. Go to the store's website or app directly once service is restored. - If you placed an online order that didn't go through, any unfulfilled web and app orders will be refunded automatically — no "refund form" link required. - Watch your bank and credit card statements for small test charges, which often precede larger fraud. - If you reused your GIANT password anywhere else (email, banking, Amazon), change it now.
If your PC starts behaving strangely after clicking an email link — pop-ups, browser redirects, locked files, or a sudden slowdown — stop using it and bring it in. Trying to clean an active infection while still logged into your bank or email usually makes things worse, and in ransomware cases, fast action can be the difference between a cleanup and needing full file recovery from an encrypted drive.
What to do if you shopped online recently
If you used the GIANT or Food Lion website or app in the last few weeks, treat your account as potentially exposed even though the company hasn't confirmed a data theft. Change the password, enable two-factor authentication if offered, and don't reuse that password anywhere else.
For small businesses in York County, this is also a reminder to patch and back up now, not later. The same week as the GIANT outage, Microsoft announced today that Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 have reached end of support. This Patch Tuesday addresses 70 "Critical" vulnerabilities, 57 of which are remote code execution — meaning an unpatched Windows machine on your network is a soft target for exactly the kind of attack that just hit a multi-billion-dollar grocery chain. If your office desktops are overdue for updates or running sluggish after this month's patches, our desktop PC repair bench can get them stable again.
What This Means for York, PA
The Giant Company is headquartered in Carlisle, less than an hour up Route 15 from York, and the chain operates stores across York, Lancaster and Dauphin counties — so this is a local story, not just a national one. If you shopped GIANT online in the last month, change your password now and be skeptical of any "GIANT" email that lands in your inbox over the next few weeks; if something slips through and infects your PC, give us a call at 717-739-9675.
Sources
- Cyberattack targeting parent company continues to impact Giant Food Stores website, app (LancasterOnline)
- The Giant grocery app and website have been down for days after a possible cyberattack (Philadelphia Inquirer)
- Giant, Stop & Shop, Food Lion websites, apps down after cybersecurity incident (6abc Philadelphia)
- Cyberattack Prompts Grocery Giant Ahold Delhaize to Disconnect Systems (SecurityWeek)
- GIANT grocery stores website, app down following cyberattack (NBC10 Philadelphia)
- Microsoft October 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 1,411 flaws, 3 zero-days (BleepingComputer)