One of the biggest firms that supply meat in Canada, JBS SA, announced in an email last Monday that it closed down its data centers in North America and Australia due to a coordinated assault on its servers, reported Bloomberg.
JBS stated the incident might cause problems in certain transactions with customers and suppliers without commenting on operations at its plants in the aftermath of the online intrusion.
Results from the attack online caused two shifts to be sidelined and stopped processing activities in one of JBS's largest meatpacking plants.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Australian country manager Brent Eastwood said that JBS's Australian businesses suspended cattle and sheep butchering. According to France 24, there were no reported incidents in their US meat processing plants.
Increased online intrusions by hackers have been ongoing against firms that offer vital products and needs for consumers. These hackers' operations generally hold vast amounts of data that belong to companies for ransom. Companies pay to get back control of the data.
This cyber-attack comes just as the meat industry is recovering from the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns from last year. Many meatpacking plants shut down and caused irregularities in the meat supply chain.
Affected plants in Canada
Scott Payne, the spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union Local 401, said a hacking incident hit a Canadian beef plant in Brooks, Alberta, about 190 kilometers (118 miles) east of Calgary, late Monday, noted Yahoo.
Payne said, "There are no unionized workers there. That means effectively the plant's operations have shut for the day."
Tim Deelstra, a spokesperson for UFCW Canada Local 175, said that the JBS packaging facility in Belleville, Ontario, where beef, pork, and salmon products are made ready for grocery store distribution, is operating normally.
An external UFCW official, Dakar Lanzino, said he has no data on whether the attack had impacted facilities in the United States on Monday, a federal holiday.
JBS is based in Sao Paulo and operates meatpacking and processing facilities in 20 countries. The United States provides 50 percent of its overall earnings, followed by Australia and New Zealand at about 4 percent, and Canada at 3 percent.
JBS is only the most recent victim by online players who are mostly unknown. This incident came three weeks after the US gasoline pipeline "Colonial" became a victim of a ransomware attack, which caused problems in the gas supply of the US.
This concentrated intrusions by hackers are concerning many with the ease of how they use malware to break into networks and put firms in imminent danger. If they were able to easily hacked into the cyber systems of JBS and Colonial Pipeline, many more firms offering vital services might experience the same problem ove and over again.
Vital food supplies and fuel resources are basic necessities, and once compromised, masses of people will suffer all the more amid the pandemic. Bolstering online networks is a must to keep hackers at bay, and identify the perpetrators.
Related article: Gas Shortage 2021: Will the Hacked Colonial Pipeline Operate After the Cyber Attack
