New York:
An American subsidiary of Brazilian meat processor JBS told the US government that it has received a ransom demand in a cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, forcing some plants to reduce production.
JBS received the demand from “a criminal organization likely based in Russia” following the attack that has impacted its operations in Australia and North America, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned on Tuesday.
The White House statement comes as however one more significant US sector finds its operations below duress much less than a month right after a cyberattack temporarily shut down the Colonial Pipeline network supplying about 45 % of the fuel consumed on the US east coast.
“The White House has offered assistance to JBS, and our team and the Department of Agriculture have spoken to their leadership several times in the last day,” Jean-Pierre mentioned.
“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.”
Brazil-based JBS is a sprawling meat supplier with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Britain.
“We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues… the vast majority of our beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants will be operational tomorrow,” Andre Nogueira, JBS chief in the United States, mentioned in a statement Tuesday.
The firm statement did not say if any ransom had been paid.
Its Australian facilities had been mentioned to have been paralyzed by the attack, with up to 10,000 meat workers getting sent home with no spend, according to a union representative.
– Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities –
“It’s affecting JBS processing facilities around (Australia),” AMIEU Queensland branch secretary Matt Journeaux told AFP. “They have stood down workers across JBS operations.”
Several plants in North America had been also impacted by the incident.
The Facebook web page for JBS’ Green Bay, Wisconsin plant mentioned there was no production Monday. Another plant in Utah was also not operating, mentioned a particular person who answered the phone and declined to give his name.
A plant in Iowa mentioned 4 departments did not operate on Monday, although remaining units had been working usually, according to its Facebook web page.
JBS’ Canada division canceled some operations, but mentioned on Facebook later in the day that standard production would resume.
The United Food and Commercial Workers nearby representing workers in Colorado and Wyoming mentioned some shifts had been canceled on Monday, according to its Facebook web page.
Colonial’s multi-day shutdown in May sparked panic shopping for in some eastern states, and ended when the firm paid $4.4 million in ransom to the hackers.
The on the web vulnerabilities of US oil conduits led the federal government last week to impose cybersecurity needs on petroleum pipelines for the initially time.
The JBS and Colonial Pipeline incidents adhere to a 2020 hack of the SolarWinds computer software firm. Last week, Microsoft warned that the state-backed Russian group behind the SolarWinds attack had re-emerged with a series of attacks on government agencies, believe tanks and other groups.
“The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving and we must adapt to address new and emerging threats,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned in a statement Thursday.
Michael Guerin, CEO of AgForce, which represents cattle farmers in Queensland, Australia, mentioned the cyberattack was “absolutely” a wake-up contact for the wider agriculture business.
“If any industry has something like this happen and doesn’t use it to learn from it, then they’ve only got themselves to blame. And the agricultural industry will be certainly sitting down and seeing what we can learn from this,” he told AFP.
“Software changes, systems change, we’re more connected as a globe,” Guerin mentioned. “So the agricultural industry is no more immune than anybody else.”
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