The world's biggest meat producer got taken down by a cyberattack

representational image of a cloud firewall
Image Credit: Pixabay (Image credit: Pixabay)

Cybercriminals have disrupted operations at one of the world’s largest meat suppliers, forcing it to restore systems from a backup, reports have claimed.

Following the attack, JBS SA was forced to take some of its servers in North America and Australia offline, delaying some transactions with customers and suppliers, although plant operations appeared to continue.

Industry news site Beef Central added that all beef and lamb kills across Australia were canceled, with some kill and fabrication shifts in the US also being halted. Canadian beef plants in Brooks, Alberta, which account for more than a quarter of the nation’s full production, were affected, it was confirmed. It processes around 4,200 head of cattle a day, allegedly.

In total, two shifts were sent home, as they had nothing to do.

“There are no unionized workers there,” Scott Payne, spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union Local 401, told Bloomberg in a phone interview. “That means effectively the plant’s operations have shut for the day.” 

Restoring from backup

JBS’ backup servers were not affected, meaning the company should be able to use data from those servers to restore its systems. So far, it is believed that customer, supplier and employee data wasn’t compromised, stolen or otherwise tampered with.

The damage caused by the attack is not yet known, but it was said that the Australian Cyber Security Center is involved in investigating. Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has said the government is trying to find out who the perpetrators are, and bring them to justice.

Little is known about the nature of the attack and we are yet to find out what type of malware was used. Given that JBS had to bring its servers offline, that it mentioned analyzing data for theft or misuse, and that it said it had to restore the systems from backups, it’s quite possible that JBS was a victim of a ransomware attack.

Via: Bloomberg

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.

Read more
Red padlock open on electric circuits network dark red background
Newspaper printing across US hit after Lee Enterprises says “cybersecurity event” disrupted operations
Zero-day attack
Japan Airlines cyberattack disrupts flights, but systems now seem to be back to normal
Code Skull
Blood donation giant warns of issues following ransomware attack
Ransomware
Atos now says its systems weren't hit by a ransomware attack after all
An illustration of a silhouetted thief in motion running while carrying a stolen fingerprint
The 5 worst cyberattacks of 2024
Ransomware
Lee Enterprises blames cyberattack for encrypting critical systems as US newspaper outages drag on
Latest in Security
China
Chinese hackers targeting Juniper Networks routers, so patch now
Google Chrome dark mode
Google updates Chrome extension rules to ban affiliate link injection without user action or benefit
Abstract image of robots working in an office environment including creating blueprint of robot arm, making a phone call, and typing on a keyboard
This worrying botnet targets unsecure TP-Link routers - thousands of devices already hacked
Avast cybersecurity
UK cybersecurity sector could be worth £13bn, research shows
An option to add Ambient Music buttons to the iOS 18.4 Control Center.
Apple fixes dangerous zero-day used in attacks against iPhones and iPads
Trump
Hackers are abusing $TRUMP tokens to lure victims in to new phishing scam
Latest in News
Google Gemini Robotics
Gemini just got physical and you should prepare for a robot revolution
Lilo & Stitch Official Trailer
Stitch crashes into earth and steals our hearts with the first trailer for the live-action Lilo & Stitch
GTA 5
GTA Online publisher Take-Two is gunning for a black market that’s basically heaven for cheaters
Y2K cast looking shocked
Y2K has a streaming release date on Max, so you can witness the technology uprising at home
The Discovery+ homepage
Discovery+ just got a big update to its streaming app that makes it more like Max – here are 5 great new features to try
Two Android phones on a green and blue background showing Google Messages
Struggling with slow Google Messages photo transfers? Google says new update will make 'noticeable difference'