Meat Production Shut Down in U.S. After Cyber Attack

International distributor JBS Foods shut down operations in both the United States and Australia this past weekend after suffering a cybersecurity incident.

Hackers targeted IT (information technology) systems of the company that supports both North America and Australia on Sunday. JBS Foods is the largest distributor of meat in the world, providing beef, pork and chicken products globally. Brands under the company include Country Pride, Certified Angus Beef, Clear River Farms, Pilgrim’s and Swift.

While the businesses’ backup servers were not affected, they are working with a third-party firm to restore daily operations as quickly as possible. According to JBS Foods, there’s no evidence that customers, suppliers or employee’s sensitive data was compromised or mishandled. There will likely be a delay in transactions as a result of the data breach.

Considering the data leak lead to an interruption in internet accessibility, JBS has been experiencing issues with meat sales and lot feeding operations in Australia. This pause in activity could have an impact on the food supply chain not just in Australia, but globally.

JBS has yet to confirm what type of security incident they suffered, but due to the quick shutdown of their IT operations, it’s likely they suffered a ransomware attack.

We’ve seen a rise in cyber attacks on essential services lately, including attacks on industries that handle critical infrastructure. The disruption to agencies we all depend on can create havoc and panic for people in their day-to-day lives, as we’ve seen with the Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds hacks.

When security operations are compromised, the damages can be large scale and affect everyone, not just business owners. If you need to keep your information secure, make sure you have security systems in place that will help mitigate your risk.

You can lessen the chances of identity theft and unauthorized access to your personal information by staying on top of your security posture.