Mondelēz appears to be the first major food company targeted by a cyber attack, which has brought down infrastructure systems around the world.
At least one Cadbury manufacturing operation – at Mondelēz’s site in Hobart, Australia – was affected by the latest round of attacks.
Pharmaceutical company Merck and shipping giant Maersk are also thought to be affected by the ransomware, similar to one in May that debilitated computer systems at Telefónica, Deutsche Bahn, FedEx and the UK’s National Health Service.
A Mondelēz spokesperson confirmed that staff were experiencing technical issues, but didn’t explicitly say that it was a ransomware attack.
“I can confirm that our employees are experiencing difficulties in various geographies,” Heidi Hauer was quoted as saying by Reuters. “We are investigating the issue.”
Spanish media reported that Mondelēz was experiencing widespread problems, with sites in Poland, England, France, Switzerland and Spain all possibly affected.
An anonymous source quoted by Spain’s El Confidencial newspaper said that the attack occurred just after midday.
El Confidencial reported: “At the moment, all the information about this new attack indicates that it is a variant of the Petya virus, which originated in Eastern Europe and has now been used to attack companies in Ukraine, Russia, France, the Netherlands and Spain – although its scope seems to have spread to many more countries.”
The ransomware, which claims to have encrypted users’ files, is demanding $300 in the virtual currency Bitcoin. According to the BBC, companies in Ukraine were hit first. The state power distributor and Kyiv airport are both thought to be affected.
Research by BDO last year found that nearly three-quarters of food manufacturing businesses suspected that Industry 4.0 automation would increase the risk of cyber attacks. Less than half felt that their existing infrastructure was adequate to prevent such attacks.
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