JBS shuts down slaughterhouses due to cyberattack

JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, reported a cyberattack on the company which has led to the shutdown of some of its slaughterhouses and might be spreading.

The five biggest beef plants of JBS in US have stopped processing the attack on weekend on company’s computer networks.

The company’s outages have wiped out nearly a fifth of America’s production. In Australia too, slaughter operation were down.

JBS supplies around a quarter of all US beef capacity in US and about a fifth of the pork.

On Sunday, JBS reported attack on some of its servers due to which it suspended its North America and Australian computer systems.

“Retailers and beef processors are coming from a long weekend and need to catch up with orders,” Steiner Consulting Group said in its Daily Livestock Report.

“If they suddenly get a call saying that product may not deliver tomorrow or this week, it will create very significant challenges in keeping plants in operation and the retail case stocked up.”

On Tuesday, the company closed beef processing facilities in Utah, Texas, Wisconsin and Nebraska and canceled shifts at plants in Iowa and Colorado.

At the second-biggest US chicken producer, Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., pork and chicken facilities across the nation were closed.

“There are at least 10 plants I have knowledge of that have had operations suspended because of the cyberattack,” said Paula Schelling-Soldner, acting chairperson for the national council of locals representing food inspectors for the American Federation of Government Employees, reported Bloomberg.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)