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

April 29, 2023

INCIDENT

Maple Leaf Foods has confirmed that it has been struck by ransomware, but it has also stated that it will not pay for any ransom to have the malware lifted from its systems. The company expects that "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.

The packaged meats company’s confirmation comes after the Black Basta ransomware gang listed Maple Leaf Foods as one of its victims. A security industry source told IT World Canada that a listing on the gang’s website appeared last week which contained multiple screenshots of different documents that were allegedly copied from Maple Leaf Foods. While copies of the stolen files were unveiled on the ransomware website, the exact amount of data stolen was not specified.

IT World Canada reached out to Maple Leaf Foods for a statement and to confirm if Black Basta was responsible for the ransomware attack, and a representative said that the company “won’t dignify criminals by naming them.”

Incident Date

November 6, 2022

Location

Canada

Estimated Cost

unknown, company refused to pay ransom

Type of Malware

No Malware identified

Threat Source