Ransomware Disrupts Meat Plants in Latest Attack on Critical U.S. Business

As restaurants and retail customers have started buying beef heading into summer, the wholesale market has been “extremely tight,” the analysts for Daily Livestock Report wrote in a report released on Tuesday. They noted that a small restaurant in southern Utah had started to charge an extra $4 for dishes that contained carne asada.

“Retailers and beef processors are coming from a long weekend and need to catch up with orders and make sure to fill the meat case,” the analysts wrote. “If they suddenly get a call saying that product may not deliver tomorrow or this week, it will create very significant challenges in keeping plants in operation and the retail case stocked up.”

An extended disruption, the analysts warned, “could add gasoline to an already large flame.”

JBS has said that it was the target of an “organized cybersecurity attack” that affected systems in North America and Australia, that its backup servers were not affected and that it did not expect that any customer, supplier or employee data was exposed.

Karine Jean-Pierre, a White House deputy press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday that JBS had told the Biden administration that it was a ransomware attack, and that the ransom demand had come from “a criminal organization likely based in Russia.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the hack, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was also involved, Ms. Jean-Pierre said.

“The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” she said.

In two weeks, President Biden is scheduled to meet the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, in Geneva for a summit in which a variety of cyberattacks, many emanating from Russia, are high on the American agenda.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/business/meat-plant-cyberattack-jbs.html