Earlier this month, a cyberattack on food giant Dole led to the company shutting down its North American production plants for a period of time and halting shipments to stores.
The public first learned about the incident yesterday. CNN We’ve heard that a fresh food manufacturer is the latest to be hit in a string of high-profile ransomware attacks.
The tip came after Stewart, an Olney, Texas grocery store, published a note from Dole on its Facebook page explaining why it was unable to supply enough prepackaged salads. .
Some of the internal notes are:
“Our factory is closed for the day and all shipments are on hold. Please be patient as we make our way. Hopefully we can minimize this event.”
Other grocery stores across the country are also reporting that customers are upset about the lack of Dole’s salads.
in the next few hours CNN In the article, Dole released a statement to the press confirming that it was infected with ransomware.
Upon learning of this incident, Dole acted swiftly to contain the threat and engaged leading third-party cybersecurity experts working with Dole’s internal teams to remediate the issue and protect the system. hired
The company has notified law enforcement of the incident and is cooperating with the investigation.
We are continuing to investigate the scope of the incident, but the impact on Dole’s operations is limited.
Dole’s statement did not say which ransomware family attacked its systems, whether sensitive data was stolen by the attackers, or whether a ransom was demanded.
In June 2021, another major food supplier, JBS, was compromised and its systems were infected by the Revil ransomware gang, affecting its ability to “handle” thousands of cows, sheep and pigs. gave JBS ultimately paid the attacker his $11 million equivalent.
Ransomware continues to pose a serious threat to organizations, and we encourage you to follow best practices to mitigate the impact of attacks.
- Create secure offsite backups.
- Run the latest security solutions and ensure your computer is protected with the latest security patches for vulnerabilities.
- Protect sensitive data and accounts with unique, hard-to-crack passwords and enable multi-factor authentication.
- Encrypt sensitive data whenever possible.
- Educate and inform staff about the risks and methods cybercriminals use to launch attacks and steal data.
