A JBS Canada beef processing facility in Alberta has resumed production after a cyberattack that impacted the company's operations throughout North America and Australia.
The JBS Canada facility in Brooks, Alberta employs more than 2,800 people. Some plant shifts were cancelled earlier this week due to the cyberattack, the company said on social media.
The world's largest meat processing company was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers for its North American and Australian information technology (IT) systems, including in Alberta.
The company said its back-up servers were not affected and that it was not aware of any evidence that any customer, supplier, or employee data had been compromised by the cyberattack.
The company said several of its pork, poultry and prepared food plants were operational as well as the Canadian facility. JBS has said the ransom demand associated with the attack came from the ransomware gang "REvil," which is believed to operate in Russia.
The attack was the second in a month on critical U.S. infrastructure. Earlier in May, hackers shut down the Colonial Pipeline, the largest U.S. fuel pipeline, for nearly a week. The closure sparked long lines and panic buying at gas stations in the U.S. Colonial Pipeline has confirmed that it paid nearly $5 million U.S. to the hackers.
JBS is the second-largest producer of beef, pork and chicken in the U.S. If it were to shut down for even one day, the U.S. would lose almost a quarter of its beef-processing capacity, or the equivalent of 20,000 beef cows.
It's not the first time a ransomware attack has targeted a food or beverage company. In March of this year, Molson Coors (NYSE:TAP) announced a cyber attack that affected its production and shipping. Molson Coors said it was able to get some of its breweries running after 24 hours while others took several days to get back online.
