Most N.B. Liquor stores reopen after closing Friday morning

Most N.B. Liquor stores have reopened after closing for several hours on Friday.

The Crown corporation had announced on its website earlier in the day that all corporate locations were closed as of 10 a.m.

But around 2:30 p.m., Florence Gouton, a spokesperson for N.B. Liquor, said all locations, except for one in Bouctouche, have reopened.

"The delay this morning, and for this branch, was due to the fact that we are using alternate processes to continue operations (for example reconciling cash transactions from the previous day), and this can cause some unrelated issues," said Gouton.

This comes more than a week after what the corporation has called a "cyber security incident" forced all N.B. Liquor and Cannabis N.B. stores to switch to cash-only sales.

The closure of all stores also comes after several individual locations were closed, or delayed opening, on Wednesday and Thursday, according to N.B. Liquor's Facebook page.

Terry Cutler, a cyber security expert with Cyology Labs in Montreal, said the rationale for closing the stores could be the need to install new systems.

"I suspect that they're still collecting evidence from certain machines, and they don't want to be, you know, constantly disturbing the cashiers by doing these software updates and taking the systems offline," said Cutler.

N.B. Liquor has said that no customer data is at risk.

"Currently there is no evidence to suggest our company or customers' information has been impacted by this incident," Marie-Andrée Bolduc, a spokesperson for N.B. Liquor, said in a statement to CBC News on Wednesday.

However, Cutler believes it would be premature to say that no data has been compromised.

"We've seen cases where, 'Oh yeah, our customer data hasn't been touched,' but yet we find out after ... another extra week or two of investigations, like, 'Shoot, this stuff really was taken or was accessed,' and they have to go and retract their statement," he said.

While it's been over a week since N.B. Liquor said it had discovered "some anomalies" in its systems, not much information about the incident has been released, and the statements that have been released have played down concerns.

Cutler said this strategy is interesting, considering the length of time this has been going on. He believes there may be "a bigger picture behind the scenes."