Meat processor JBS said all of its plants were fully operational on Thursday, four days after a ransomware attack shut down cattle slaughter plants in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Less than one day’s worth of production was lost during the attack, said JBS in a statement.
“The criminals were never able to access our core [computer] systems, which greatly reduced potential impact,” said Andre Nogueira, chief executive of JBS USA. “Today, we were fortunate that all of our facilities around the globe are operating at normal capacity.”
With headquarters in Brazil, JBS is the world’s largest meat processor. The FBI has identified the Russian-speaking gang REvil, also called Sodinokibi, as the culprit. President Biden said on Wednesday that he will raise ransomware attacks, including the one on JBS, directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in two weeks.
The meatpacker said its encrypted backup servers were one reason for its rapid recovery from the attack.
JBS said “any lost production” from the intrusion “will be fully recovered by the end of next week,” limiting the impact on meat supplies in grocery stores and on cattle producers with animals ready for sale.