US unit of meat supply giant JBS hacked

WASHINGTON – JBS USA, the American subsidiary of the world’s largest meat-processing company, yesterday said it has been hacked.

“JBS USA determined that it was the target of an organised cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems,” said the unit in a statement.

The intrusion was detected on Sunday, it said.

The Brazil-based company said it has suspended all the affected systems, notified authorities, and called in its IT professionals and third-party experts to deal with the hack.

It said its back-up servers were not affected.

“The company is not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised or misused as a result of the situation.

“Resolution of the incident will take time, which may delay certain transactions with customers and suppliers.”

JBS is a sprawling meat supplier with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Britain.

Earlier last month, hackers attacked Colonial Pipeline, which transports nearly half of the gasoline and other fuel consumed in the US east coast, causing shortages and panic-buying until the firm paid the attackers a ransom of US$4.4 million (RM18.15 million) for its online systems to be freed. – AFP, June 1, 2021