Dixons blames downtime on security upgrade

Britain's largest electronics retailer Dixons Group has been forced to shut down its websites for 24 hours to upgrade system security.

The sites, including Currys.co.uk, Dixons.com, TheLink.com and PCWorld.co.uk, were taken offline yesterday evening for what a spokesman called a "minor security enhancement".

Shoppers trying to access the sites were greeted with a notice, which said the website was "temporarily unavailable".

Ironically, customers calling the freephone number provided for PC World were treated to a holding message advising them to try the store's website instead.

Although Dixons is not releasing details of the security upgrade, the group's spokesman said all its websites had to be taken down simultaneously but customer data was not put at risk.

It's the second piece of bad news for the retailer in less than a month. At the beginning of September the group lost more than £330m off its share value as sales of mobile phones and PCs slumped.

The group restored its websites to working order on Wednesday afternoon.