Nick Scali Hit by Cyberattack: Orders Delayed, Systems Offline, Customers Left Waiting

Key points

• Nick Scali, an Australian furniture chain with 132 stores worldwide, confirmed a cyberattack that forced it to take its computer systems offline, with the incident beginning around mid-week in the week prior to the company's statement.
• Deliveries and customer communications have been significantly delayed, with some customers waiting at home for furniture that never arrived and receiving no explanation.
• The company says there is no evidence that customer data was accessed without authorisation.
• Nick Scali has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the government body responsible for coordinating national responses to cyber threats.
• The retailer published a brief outage notice buried inside the "My account" section of its website, offering no proactive communication to affected customers.

Australia's Nick Scali, the publicly listed furniture retailer, has confirmed it was hit by a cyberattack that knocked its internal computer network offline, disrupting deliveries and customer service across the country. The company made the disclosure to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the country's main stock market regulator, after enquiries from the Sydney Morning Herald.

CEO Anthony Scali told reporters the attack happened "about mid-last week" and that staff had fallen back on paper records to track down customers whose orders were affected. "The system got attacked, like everyone else," he said. "Everything's offline. We're bringing some components back up now."

What does this mean for customers waiting on orders?

For many buyers, the first sign of trouble was a missing delivery. Melbourne customer Bill Bariamis stayed home on a Monday expecting a dining table. It did not arrive. A reschedule notice pointed him to Wednesday. That delivery did not arrive either. When he visited the Frankston store where he had bought the table, staff told him there had been "a major outage of computers and telephones for the last week" but had no further details to share.

"No delivery, no update, no information, no nothing," Bariamis said.

A customer service representative reached by phone described "a nationwide outage" affecting the company's central computer system, known as the mainframe, the large server that coordinates orders, emails, and phone links between stores. That representative said resolution could take "a couple of weeks".

Nick Scali's main website and social media accounts carried no alerts. Customers had to find their way to the "My account" login page to see any mention of an outage at all.

What data was exposed?

Right now, Nick Scali says no customer data was accessed without authorisation. No specific data categories, record counts, or date ranges have been disclosed. The ACSC and Australian Federal Police are investigating, and those findings may produce a clearer picture.

The type of attack has not been confirmed. No ransomware group, meaning a criminal organisation that locks company files and demands payment to restore them, has publicly claimed responsibility as of publication.

What should affected customers do?

If you are waiting on a Nick Scali order, visit the store where you purchased rather than relying on phone or email, as those channels remain disrupted. Keep receipts and any written confirmation of your order. Monitor your bank statements: while there is no confirmed data theft, watching for unusual transactions is always sensible after a retailer reports an attack. If your financial details were saved in a Nick Scali account, consider changing that password on any other site where you use the same one.