Asos Shares Tumble After Reported Cyberattack

UK online fashion giant Asos saw its share price slump almost 15 percent in London trading Tuesday after customers reportedly received a mobile notification claiming its systems had been hacked.

Asos, whose website remains accessible, has yet to respond to an AFP request for comment.

“ASOS HACKED. Dear Asos DPO and IT, we have fully compromised your Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it,” read the notification, which urged the company to make contact via a Telegram link.

DPO stands for Data Protection Officer, while Snowflake is a US company that provides its clients with a cloud-based platform for data storage, management and analysis.

Snowflake also had not responded to an AFP request for comment.

Such a notification, which amounts to “psychological warfare”, is “designed to whip up panic”, said Marie Wilcox, market strategy analyst at cybersecurity firm Binalyze.

The attackers reasoned that “any panic piles on the pressure on Asos to think about paying up rather than taking time to develop a rational response”, she said.

Founded in 2000, Asos has 17 million active customers worldwide, according to its own figures.

It generated £2.48 billion ($3.29 billion) in revenue while posting net losses of £298 million in the 12 months to the end of August 2025.

Its own brands account for 40 percent of the value of goods sold on the platform, compared to 60 percent for partner brands.

Last year, the UK was hit by a wave of cyberattacks targeting, among others, Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer, the department store Harrods and the Co-op food chain.

And three British airports belonging to the Manchester Airports Group were targeted by an attack in August that resulted in the theft of personal data belonging to 8.7 million customers.