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Cybersecurity

Cyberattack on Meat Supplier JBS Forces Shut Down of Multiple U.S. Plants

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Cybersecurity

On Sunday Brazil-based JBS was targeted by a cyberattack that forced the shutdown of its facilities in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. The ransomware attack affected servers that support the company’s IT systems in North America and Australia. It is suspected to have originated from an organization based in Russia, according to reports.

It is expected that most of the company’s beef, pork, poultry and prepared food plants will be operational today, JBS said in a statement last night. Thus far the company is unaware of any customer, supplier or employee data that has been compromised.

Cyberattacks coming from Russia have increased at a significant rate and are likely to continue. “The fact that this kind of activity is happening with a relatively high frequency and also all signs sort of leading back to Russia, that is very disturbing,” said Javed Ali, a former National Security Council director of counterterrorism, in an ABC News report. “I don’t think we’ve seen a period of this kind of high-intensity cyber operations from Russian soil directed against a variety of different U.S. targets arguably ever, unless the government has been tracking this and the public details of those types of operations haven’t been revealed before.”