JBS USA Holdings Inc. paid an $11 million ransom to cybercriminals who last week temporarily knocked out plants that process roughly one-fifth of the countrys meat supply, the businesss president stated.
The ransom payment, in bitcoin, was made to shield JBS meat plants from additional disturbance and to limit the possible impact on restaurants, supermarket and farmers that depend on JBS, stated Andre Nogueira, chief executive of Brazilian meat company JBS SAs U.S. department.
“It was really uncomfortable to pay the wrongdoers, but we did the best thing for our clients,” Mr. Nogueira said Wednesday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He added that the payment was made after most of JBS plants were up and running once again.
JBS is the worlds largest meat business by sales, processing beef, poultry, and pork from Australia to South America and Europe. The attack on JBS was part of a wave of attacks using ransomware, in which business are hit with needs for multimillion-dollar payments to regain control of their operating systems. The attacks reveal how hackers have actually shifted from targeting data-rich business such as merchants, insurers and banks to essential-service suppliers such as hospitals, transport operators and food companies.