The largest beef producer in the United States, JBS, said most of its meat factories would be operational on Wednesday, a rapid turnaround after a major cyberattack forced it to shut down many of its slaughterhouses earlier this week.
The company said in a statement late Tuesday that it expected the “vast majority” of its meat plants to be operating on Wednesday because it had made “significant progress” in tackling the cyberattack.
This means that it’s unlikely that meat prices will go up or that there will be any significant food shortages, contrary to initial predictions after the attack on its computer systems by a Russian hacking group on Sunday.
“Our systems are coming back online and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat,” JBS USA CEO Andre Nogueira said in a statement. “We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues and we are successfully executing those plans.”
RUSSIAN HACKER GROUP THREATENS TO RELEASE SENSITIVE DC POLICE RECORDS
The company said that it took swift action after it learned of the cyberattack and its IT team has been working nonstop for the past 24 hours to ensure its systems are restored so that its beef, pork, and poultry food plants are operational again.
The Brazilian meat giant’s five biggest beef plants in the U.S., which handle over 20,000 cattle every day, had stopped meat processing on Monday and Tuesday, according to company statements and Facebook posts after the cyberattack.
Company executives informed the White House about the attack on Sunday by a Russian criminal organization that demanded a ransom after the cyberattack. It’s unclear how much money the hackers demanded or if JBS paid the ransom.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The U.S. is on high alert regarding cyberattacks after a hacking group, known to be from Eastern Europe, shut down one of the country’s critical sources of energy, the Colonial Pipeline, which significantly slowed gas delivery on the East Coast earlier this month.
