Duvel halts production following ransomware attack — but don't worry, it says there's still plenty of beer

Two Full Beer Steins Clinking Together Against A Bright Blue Sky Backdrop

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

A major Belgian brewery has confirmed it was hit by a ransomware attack, forcing the company to suspend the production.

The famous Duvel Moortgat Brewery, known for its eponymous pale ale, as well as Vedett, Maredsous, and other beers, shared a short statement explaining that the attack happened in the dead of night.

"At 1:30 AM last night, alarms went off in Duvel's IT department because ransomware was detected," company spokesperson Ellen Aarts said. "Therefore, production was immediately stopped. It is not yet known when it could restart. We hope to restart today or tomorrow."

Using accounts for spam

While a disruption to the production of goods and services is always bad for business, Duvel believes this attack shouldn’t affect it too much, because it is solidly stocked up. “We have more than enough beer in stock to compensate for this production halt,” Duvel was cited.

Cybernews also reported that things aren’t nearly as tragic as they might seem, at first. “My friend working there just told me that the beer pumps are still working,” the publication cited a user, sharing details on Reddit. “So all people working there (except IT) are now drinking beers in the cafeteria.”

Reddit users responded to the news with classic pub banter, with one user describing the attack as a “national emergency” and another as a “declaration of war”.

So far, no ransomware groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ransomware attackers usually steal sensitive data from their victims, and then encrypt it and demand payment, in exchange for the decryption key and keeping the data private. In this case, the hackers may have obtained recipes to different beers, but at this point, it’s too early to tell. Duvel isn’t mentioning any data theft, and unless a threat actor comes forward, we will probably never know.

Via BleepingComputer

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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.