Some of the best-known names in UK business – brands also known around the world – have been affected in 2025. by major cyberattacks that have caused them serious operational consequences and enormous economic losses. Marks & Spencer, Co-operative Group, Harrods—which suffered two, one in May and a second last week—and HM have all suffered the effects of the hacker attack. The automobile company Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has also suffered two: the first, last March, carried out by a group called Hellcat. However, the company was able to continue its activity without major disruptions.

Only those with a memory and several years of experience will remember the Marks & Spencer (M&S) store on Barcelona's Plaza Catalunya—it opened in 1999—in the same building that once housed the famous Banco Central, which was the site of the May 1981 robbery and now houses a Primark. And perhaps they also remember the one that used to be inside Illa Diagonal. These were two of the nine stores the British chain had in Spain since its first establishment in Madrid (1994). M&S abandoned all its operations in the continental market in 2001, when it closed the 38 stores it had on the other side of the La Manga Canal.