Cyberattack shuts down all JBS beef plants in the US, showing food supply vulnerability to hacking attacks

(Natural News) All beef plants operated by JBS in the United States have been shut down due to a cyberattack that targeted some of the company’s servers over the weekend. The attack, which the dishonest corporate media has blamed on Russian hackers, also shut down some of the company’s operations in Australia and Canada as well.
The attack threatens the U.S.’s food supply due to JBS’ size. The world’s largest beef supplier, JBS controls about a quarter of the U.S. beef market. Should the company’s plants not be able to operate over a sustained period, shortages may develop, causing prices to spike.

Attack comes as beef prices continue to rise

The cyberattack comes as U.S. beef and pork prices are already rising due to China increasing imports, animal feed costs rising and meat processing plants confronting a labor shortage following shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s probably going to be pretty tight for the next few days because even though they (JBS) are going to start opening … who knows how they are going to run,” said Altin Kalo, an economist at Steiner Consulting Group. “There’s a fair amount of people that are scrambling (for beef supplies).”
On Wednesday, June 2, U.S. meatpackers slaughtered 12.5 percent fewer cattle than a week before and 8 percent less than a year earlier, according to estimates from the Department of Agriculture.
JBS has since stated that it had made “significant progress” in resolving the cyberattack. On Monday, May 31, the company said that it had suspended all affected IT systems as soon as the attack was detected. Its backup servers, on the other hand, were supposedly not hacked.
IT systems are essential in modern meat processing plants. Computers are used at multiple stages in the meat processing and packing process, including for billing and shipping.
Employees eventually started returning to JBS’s U.S. meat plants on Wednesday, June 2, only a day after operations had halted. The company has since stated that most of its operations resumed on Wednesday, including the “majority of our beef facilities in the U.S. and Australia.”
“We anticipate operating at close to full capacity across our global operations tomorrow,” said JBS USA Chief Executive Andre Nogueira in a statement.

Cyberattack blamed on Russians

The company believes that the ransomware attack on its systems most likely came from a Russia-based criminal group. If this is the case, then this makes it the third major major attack this year tied to Russia.
Importantly, the discredited corporate-run media has dishonestly blamed everything on Russia since 2016, when President Trump won the election for his first term.
Prior to this, a cyberattack was carried out last month allegedly by a group with ties to Russia hit the Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. This attack crippled fuel delivery for several days in the U.S. Southeast, leading to skyrocketing prices and long lines at gas pumps. (Related: Gasoline supplies COLLAPSE across southern states as cyber hack of pipeline wreaks regional economic havoc.)
A source familiar with the matter has pointed to Russian cyber gang REvil as the culprit behind the JBS attack. The prolific ransomware group was previously known for attacking an Apple supplier named Quanta Computer earlier this year. In that case, the group sent extortion threats to Quanta, demanding that the company pay $50 million to regain access to its systems.
Over the past couple of years, ransomware has evolved into a pressing national issue, A number of gangs, many involving Russians or Russian speakers, develop software that encrypts a company’s files and then demands payment in cryptocurrency for the files to be unlocked.
The threat of these attacks is such that the White House is getting involved. On Wednesday, June 2, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki that the JBS hack was expected to be discussed at President Joe Biden’s mid-June summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We’re not taking any options off the table in terms of how we may respond, but of course there’s an internal policy review process to consider that,” she said. “We’re in direct touch with the Russians, as well, to convey our concerns about these reports”
“President Biden certainly thinks that President Putin and the Russian government has a role to play in stopping and preventing these attacks,” she added.
Follow CyberWar.news for more of the latest on this and other Russian cyberattack stories.
Sources include:
Bloomberg.com
ZeroHedge.com
Reuters.com
TechRepublic.com

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

15 Comments

  1. Boon June 6, 2021 at 12:34

    I call BS, state run domestic terrorism is the culprit. NWO following the plan, hope everyone is preparing this is only the beginning.

    • NC Scout June 6, 2021 at 12:36

      If its state run then wouldn’t it be state sponsored terrorism?
      And on that note…what if…if…the Chinese and current American Governments were one in the same? (strokes beard).

      • Coyyote June 6, 2021 at 13:08

        Agree with Scout (clean shaven, no beard to stroke)
        Fortunately my cousin has a large cattle operation and our freezers stay topped. Veggies are a different matter, I ain’t no farmer.

        • Boon June 6, 2021 at 13:28

          Power grid operates your freezer, right? Even with a generator and a few hundred gallons of fuel maybe a couple months of power? Good clean water source that can be hand pumped? Veggies are not that difficult to grow and alternative meat storage other than freezing is possible. I am thinking power grid failure is on the horizon and may be a trigger for a SHTF scenario.

          • Coyyote June 6, 2021 at 14:58

            Boon . Being smarter than average bear. We have standby generator and enough propane to get us to winter. Can also salt, smoke and cure meat if necessary. Easy access to meat on the hoof wild. Several springs on the ranch and have a Lehman’s well bucket that goes down a water well. Fuel in gravity ranch tanks (pumps in city won’t work w power grid down). I could go on but you get the picture- not our first rodeo Pard. Yep

        • ConSigCor June 6, 2021 at 14:37

          It’s time to learn how to farm Start with a small garden and practice now before the crap hits the rotating oscillator.
          A freezer is a good idea; but if there is a grid failure a generator is a very short term solution. With a grid down event fuel will not be available. To keep the cooler running, think solar panels and T105RE deep cycle batteries with a pure sine wave inverter. Also a good idea to learn how to can meat.

      • kelly1 June 6, 2021 at 23:19

        The US and Chinese governments may not be wittingly the same, but they’re certainly tightly interlocked in various ways. Supranational forces like those composing the WEF might be the real commonality. The very nature of a multinational company may erode loyalty to country and to some extent force the hands of its executives. I wonder to what extent this trait arose organically versus being a conscious feature? Their ilk shifted our factories to China, savaging our middle class and contributing to increasing Chinese military power. One of the lessons of WWII was that sheer industrial output could trump an adversary’s overall superior weapons. To the extent that argument currently applies, China would have a major advantage in protracted conflict. You could argue these executives, wittingly or not, are traitors to our country. We see maybe a related phenomena where someone like Fauci channels funding for dual-use research to a BSL-4 lab facility in Wuhan! I can think of several scenarios under which he’d do this, but they should all end with Fauci in prison. Circumventing the apparent USG ban on SARS gain-of-function research (at least in civilian labs) is one scenario Another is that this research was fostered in Wuhan to use the Chinese as a scapegoat for the virus’ release when in fact some third party (connected in some way to the USG) deliberately released it. The sudden rehabilitation of the lab leak theory in all our MSM propaganda organs suggests that much more than meets the eye is beneath the surface. One thing I suspect most of us here can agree on is that very little of what we’re seeing is chance.

        • NC Scout June 7, 2021 at 00:06

          Cannot argue with a single thing stated.

          • 0ughtsix June 9, 2021 at 19:59

            Ditto, +100

  2. boss21 June 6, 2021 at 13:20

    Herr Klaus told us months ago this would happen. All the attacks seem focused on industries and stuff deplorables need and like. What a coincidence. One good thing is they are discrediting their own globalized just in time system and forcing people to look at their own provisioning – like humans always did anyway.

  3. Anonymous June 6, 2021 at 16:07

    1

  4. Johnny Paratrooper June 6, 2021 at 16:11

    Stealth War.
    There is a reason Lockheed and others built gigantic computers and began hiring computer science guys in the 1990’s and switched a serious portion of their business model from Aerospace to Cyberspace.
    I suspect that the new FBI HQ2 in Alabama also is representative of this shift.

  5. Another Nobody June 7, 2021 at 03:08
  6. LimaSierra08 June 7, 2021 at 23:45

    Local intel here from MO;
    I’ve worked at JBS farms as electrician helper & Ham Hill Farms as their ISP tech.
    Talked with guys at Ham Hill & they said that the JBS hack effected them also.
    They said they were unable to use their system to sell meat.
    I’m not familiar with their system, & it could be that JBS and these other smaller farms all use the same system to buy/sell.
    Regardless, this effected more than just JBS in the meat industry.

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