System Outage at Maple Leaf Food Manufacturer in Canada after Ransomware Attack

Maple Leaf Foods has confirmed that it was struck by ransomware. The company stated that it will not pay any ransom. And expects "full resolution of the outage will take time and result in some operational and service disruptions." "The outage is creating some operational and service disruptions that vary by business unit, plant and site." This confirmation comes after the Black Basta ransomware gang listed Maple Leaf Foods as one of its victims. IT World Canada reached out to confirm if Black Basta was responsible for the ransomware attack. A Maple Leaf Food representative said that the company “won’t dignify criminals by naming them.”

UPDATE: On March 9, four months after the incident, the company released the financial results that showed the attack costing over US$16,5M. Maple Leaf Foods President and Chief Operating Officer Curtis Frank said: "We are immensely proud of how our team responded in the face of this crisis. In less than 48 hours, we were able to pivot our organization to operate in a fully manual process, basically going back to paper and pencils. With remarkable pace, our information systems team cleaned, rebooted and restored our systems, allowing us to start back on the road to recovery."

Estimated Cost

> CA$23 million (US$16.6 million)

Threat Source

Impacts

OT IT