White House targets Russia after cyber attack that forced meat company JPS to stop production | International

White House targets Russia after cyber attack that forced meat company JPS to stop production |  International
Inactivity at a JPS processing plant in Graley, Colorado this Tuesday.Chat Strange / AFP

Giant Brazilian meat J.P.S. It is the latest target of global hacking, with its subsidiary being extorted by a cyber attack in the United States earlier this week. Russia It was forced to suspend part of production in North America and Australia.

JBS’s U.S. affiliate has received a ransom request from “a Russian-based criminal organization,” which has been pursuing lawsuits in Australia and North America since the cyber attack, a House White spokesman said Tuesday. The fact that the confirmation came from the White House reveals the location of the attack, which comes within a month of the DarkSite group’s hackers’ action. Force the temporary closure of the colonial pipeline pipe networkIt supplies 45% of the fuel off the east coast of the United States.

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A White House spokesman said it was the president’s government Joe Biden Assisted JBS and liaised with those responsible for the Department of Agriculture FBI The Institute for Cyber ​​Security and Infrastructure Security (CISA), in conjunction with the FBI, is investigating the incident and providing technical support to the company. “The White House is in direct contact with the Russian government and is sending a message that the countries responsible have not been held accountable.” ransomwareSaid the spokesman. Russia refuses to serve as a base for dark side pirates.

The ransomware (Malicious program) a Modus operandi Cybercrime is the use of security vulnerabilities in a computer system to prevent it and then demand a ransom to restart it. Colonial Pipeline, one of the largest fuel distribution networks in the United States, had to shell out 4.4 million to hackers to open its systems, the company agreed. The company’s vulnerability led the Biden government last week to impose cyber security requirements on pipelines for the first time.

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The attack on the meat company was revealed by the company this Monday. “JBS USA has become the target of an organized cyber security attack, affecting some servers that support computer systems in North America and Australia,” the company said in a statement.

It was the unions that indicated the purpose of the cyber attack. United Food and Commerce workers, who represent workers in Colorado and Wyoming, said the butchery and production changes were canceled Monday. A Wisconsin factory has said there will be no production that day. Another from Utah announced Monday that operations would be halted, with only four departments paralyzed by partial closure in Iowa. The JPS division in Canada canceled some operations early Monday and this Tuesday, but then announced via Facebook that it would resume normal production.

Based in Brazil, JPS specializes in processed products based on beef, poultry and pork, and is one of the largest agri-food companies in the world, with the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The company has assured that its backup servers have not been affected by the incident and may resume operations at most plants this Wednesday. In Australia, union sources quoted the French press as saying that the JPS factory was paralyzed and forced to send 10,000 workers home without pay, adding that they did not know when the plant would resume operations.

The two cyber attacks cited follow the bold intervention of a software company called Solar Winds in 2020, which led Washington to a Moscow support group and This prompted tough economic sanctions against individuals and companies in the Kremlin orbit. According to Microsoft, a new cyber attack that took place a few weeks ago is suspected in the same group, which may have targeted the servers of government agencies, expert centers, consultants and other organizations.

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“The cyber security landscape is constantly evolving and we need to adapt to face new and growing threats,” he said last week. Alejandro Myorgas, Head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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Arzu Daniel

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