World’s largest meat processer hit by large-scale cyber attack

• The world’s largest meat processor, JBS S.A., has been forced to shut its operations in Australia after a large scale cyber attack
• There are reports the food supplier’s IT services were hit on Sunday, affecting its facilities in Australia
• The company operates in 47 different locations in Australia as well as close to 60 venues across North America
• In a statement, JBS said it was working with its incident response team to get its systems back online
• The Australian Government has also reached out to the company, with authorities brought in to investigate the hack

The world’s largest meat processor, JBS S.A., has been forced to shut its operations in Australia after a large scale cyber attack.

The global food supplier’s IT services were hit on Sunday, according to news publication Beef Central.

JBS operates in 47 different locations across Australia as well as close to 60 venues across North America.

The attack has had the worst impact on JBS’s Australian facilities, with delays in orders expected.

In a statement, JBS said it was working with its incident response team to get its systems back online.

“The company took immediate action, suspending all affected systems, notifying authorities and activating the company’s global network of IT professionals and third-party experts to resolve the situation,” JBS stated.

“The company’s backup servers were not affected and it is actively working with an incident response firm to restore its systems as soon as possible.”

The Australian Government has also reached out to the company, with U.S. and Australian authorities also brought in to investigate the cyber attack.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said he was confident JBS would be back online shortly.

“The technology that (JBS) use, the systems they use, go to the heart of the quality assurance of the beef that they process,” Minister Littleproud told ABC.

“So we need to make sure that we can get that up and going to give confidence, not just to consumers here in Australia, but also to our export markets.”