Hackers attack America’s largest meat processor over Memorial Day weekend

Several weeks ago hackers attacked America’s critical gas infrastructure. This week hackers attacked the company’s food production facilities. Who knows what’s next on the list?

This latest attack saw hackers target the information systems of Brazilian meat processing giant JBS. Though based in Brazil, JBS is one of the world’s most prominent meat processors and has operations in Canada, America, and Australia. It’s their operations in those nations that were impacted by the attack.

In a statement, JBS said that on Sunday, May 30th the company determined it was under a cyberattack “affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems.” JBS says its backup systems were not affected, however, it will still take some time before all IT systems are back up and running as normal.

The result means that certain transactions with customers and suppliers could be delayed. While there is no sign that this cyberattack will severely hamper America’s meat supply, it is a worrying sign that hackers seem to be choosing to attack critical infrastructures and operations much of the nation depends on an increasingly frequent basis.

At this time there is no evidence the gas pipeline and meat processing cyberattacks were carried out by the same group. The company also believes that no employee, customer, or supplier data were compromised in the attack.