Empire Company which owns chains like Sobeys, Safeway, IGA and Lawtons is being very quiet about a system-wide IT issue which has impacted pharmacies, gift cards and loyalty cards.

Moncton area cybersecurity expert Scott Beck suspects this could be a far-reaching problem.

“Either they’re struggling with getting back to normal operations or recovery, or it’s been so severe, they don’t have a clear path forward as yet possibly.”

As a publicly-traded company, Beck believes Empire is keeping mum because a black eye around cyber could impact shares.

“Cybercrime unfortunately is one of the few crimes where the victim is kind of thought of as having been careless or irresponsible to have this happen – it’s like having a dunce hat on.”

Empire did say on Monday that it’s dealing with a “information technology systems issue” which has been impacting pharmacies and gift cards since late last week.

The company noted its grocery stores remain open to serve customers and are not experiencing significant disruptions at this time.

However, a media statement adds that some in-store services are functioning intermittently or with a delay.