M&S reveals cost of cyber attack as profit almost wiped out

The cyber attack on high street department store Marks and Spencer is expected to directly cost roughly £136m.

The figure is only the cost of immediate incident systems response and recovery, as well as specialist legal

and professional services support.

Combined with a loss in sales, as the retailer's online systems were out of action from Easter into the summer, statutory profit before tax at the business has been nearly wiped out for the first half of the year.

This profit measure dropped from £391.9m last year to £3.4m this year. Statutory profit before tax is the official profit figure reported in a company's financial statements before it paid tax, used for tax and legal purposes.

About £100m is being claimed back in insurance for the cyberattack, M&S said in its market update.