Ransomware attack temporarily shuts down Dole production, disrupts food supplies
Food giant Dole plc announced Wednesday that it recently experienced a cybersecurity incident that was determined to be ransomware. The cyber attack has caused the company’s operations to be disrupted, resulting in the temporary shutdown of production plants and the disruption of food supplies to U.S. grocery stores.
“Upon learning of this incident, Dole moved quickly to contain the threat and engaged leading third-party cybersecurity experts, who have been working in partnership with Dole’s internal teams to remediate the issue and secure systems,” confirmed a company release. “The company has notified law enforcement about the incident and are cooperating with their investigation.”
Dole did not go into detail about the ransomware hackers’ attack methods. They also did not specify the nature of the affected systems or the number of affected systems. The company also did not specify how long the production would be shut down.
Emanuel Lazopoulos, senior vice president at Dole’s Fresh Vegetables division, is reported to have said in a Feb. 10 memo to retailers that “Dole Food Company is in the midst of a Cyber Attack and have subsequently shut down our systems throughout North America,”
The CNN report added that two grocery stores in Texas and New Mexico contacted by CNN on Wednesday said they couldn’t stock Dole salad kits on their shelves for days.
Clayton Ranch Market, in the small town of Clayton, New Mexico, near the border with Oklahoma and Texas, has been short of salad kits since the beginning of last week, Jeff Russell, assistant manager of the store’s produce section, told CNN by phone on Wednesday.
He added that the salad kits his store was out of on Tuesday, the most recent full day of inventory, from Dole Chopped Sesame to Dole Butter Bliss.
A cyberattack on Dole was the cause of the salad shortage, Adam Wolfe, the store’s manager, told CNN, citing the Dole memo, which he said his store received from its wholesale grocery provider, Affiliated Foods Inc., in Texas.
CNN reported that Goldfield, the Dole spokesperson, declined to answer questions on the incident, including whether a ransom was demanded by the hackers.
The Dole attack is similar to the June 2021 cyber attack on meat processing company JBS USA, which paid a ransom of US$11 million to end a major cyber-attack. JBS’ computer networks were hacked at the time, temporarily shutting down operations in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The payment was reportedly made using Bitcoin after plants had come back online.
The cyberattack on Dole comes at a time when cybercrime is rising, and the U.S. government has been working to address the issue. In November, the U.S. administration released a National Security Memorandum that works on strengthening the security and resilience of the nation’s food and agriculture sector, in response to the possibility of high-consequence and catastrophic incidents.
The federal government is set to identify and assess threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts from these high-consequence and catastrophic incidents. It will also work on prioritizing resources to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk.
Earlier this month, Industrial cybersecurity company Dragos reported an increase in attacks on energy, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, water and wastewater. The Hanover, Maryland-based company also discovered multiple ransomware variants/affiliates impacting food and beverage entities with ransomware variants executing ICS Cyber Kill Chain Stage 1 – Install/Modify, Act attacks.
However, Dragos assesses with moderate confidence that the ransomware groups are not explicitly targeting this sector but going after ‘low-hanging fruit.’
A complimentary guide to the who`s who in industrial cybersecurity tech & solutions
Free DownloadRelated
