LENOIR, N.C. — The world’s largest meat processing company is getting back online after production around the world was disrupted by a cyberattack just weeks after a similar incident shut down a U.S. oil pipeline.
Brazil’s JBS SA said late Tuesday that it had made “significant progress” in dealing with the cyberattack and expected the “vast majority” of its plants to be operating on Wednesday.
“Our systems are coming back online and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat,” Andre Nogueira, CEO of JBS USA, said in a statement.
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Earlier, the White House said JBS, which employs 170 workers in Lenoir, had notified the U.S. of a ransom demand from a criminal organization likely based in Russia. White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House and the Department of Agriculture have been in touch with the company several times this week.
Channel 9′s Dave Faherty was outside the JBS plant in Lenoir Wednesday morning and said he spotted both Food Lion and MDI trucks moving trailers closer to the building.
The cyberattack didn’t stop production but the workers said it did alter how they filled orders.
“The system was down and they couldn’t do everything by computer so they had to do everything by hand,” employee Charles Roland said.
Faherty checked local food stores and restaurants in the area and didn’t find any impacts but frustration is growing over these types of attacks.
“It’s kinda scary especially for my kids cause what kind of world are they gonna have if they keep hacking,” resident Kimberly Townsend said. “That’s vey scary, especially feeding a family of four.”
At this point, we don’t know if there will be any meat shortages. The US Department of Agriculture said it has reached out to other meat processors encouraging them to increase capacity to keep supplies moving.
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, according to Trey Malone, an assistant professor of agriculture at Michigan State University.
The closures reflect the reality that modern meat processing plants are heavily automated, for both food- and worker-safety reasons. Computers collect data at multiple stages of the production process, and orders, billing, shipping and other functions are all electronic.
JBS, which has not stated publicly that the attack was ransomware, said the cyberattack affected servers supporting its operations in North America and Australia. Backup servers weren’t affected and it said it was not aware of any customer, supplier or employee data being compromised.
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