American food processing giant JBS Foods halts production after cyberattack

The American food processing company and meat producer JBS Foods was forced to shut down production at multiple sites worldwide following a cyberattack.

The American food processing giant JBS Foods, the world’s largest processor of fresh beef, was forced to shut down production at multiple sites worldwide following a cyberattack.

The cyberattack impacted multiple production plants of the company worldwide, including facilities located in the United States, Australia, and Canada.

JBS USA disclosed the cyberattack, according to a press release published by the company the attack had a severe impact on infrastructure located in Australia and North America.

“On Sunday, May 30, JBS USA determined that it was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems. The company took immediate action, suspending all affected systems, notifying authorities and activating the company’s global network of IT professionals and third-party experts to resolve the situation. The company’s backup servers were not affected, and it is actively working with an Incident Response firm to restore its systems as soon as possible.” reads the press release published by the company.

JBS said that it is not aware of any data breach caused by the cyber attack, it added that transactions with customers and suppliers will be delayed.

“The company is not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised or misused as a result of the situation. Resolution of the incident will take time, which may delay certain transactions with customers and suppliers.” continues the press release.

The company already notified the Australian government.

At the time of this writing, the company did not disclose details about the attack, but the effects disclosed by the JBS led experts into believing that it was a ransomware attack.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud confirmed the government was aware of the attack.

“We’re obviously working with law enforcement here in Australia and we’re also working with our international partners,” Mr Littleproud said. “It’s under investigation and it’s important that we respect that process.” “The technology that [JBS] use, the systems they use, go to the heart of the quality assurance of the beef that they process.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, hacking)