GREELEY, Colo. – Meat producer JBS claimed significant progress in resolving the cyberattack that shut operations in North America and Australia. “The vast majority of our beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants will be operational tomorrow,” the company reported Tuesday from its U.S. headquarters in Greeley. JBS has revealed few details but characterized what happened as an “organized cybersecurity attack” that affected some servers supporting its North American and Australian computer systems. Soon after the servers failed, a ransom demand came in. How much was the ransom? Was it paid? JBS didn’t say. Who made the demands? Sources said a Russia-based criminal ransomware family, REvil, likely was responsible.
Quick recovery
The JBS cyberattack recovery was usually quick. Some operations, including slaughterhouses in Worthington, Minnesota, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, were up and running after one day. A similar attack in April on Continental Pipeline interrupted basic operations for a week. Said JBS in a statement: “We are not sparing any resources to fight this threat. We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues and we are successfully executing those plans.”