Cold storage giant Americold suffers network breach, disrupting operations

Leading cold storage and logistics company Americold, which employs nearly 17,000 people globally and manages 245 temperature-controlled warehouses across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South America, experienced a network breach last week that caused a disruption in operations.

According to a memo sent to customers, the company contained the attack and is now investigating the intrusion. The company shut down the network to ensure no risk to non-contained areas or customers. It is estimated that its systems will be down until at least next week since it is still in the discovery process of rebuilding the impacted systems.

Americold has asked customers to cancel all "inbound" deliveries after next week and reschedule all but the most critical outbounds, which include products that could expire. Manual capabilities for outbounds will remain severely limited.

Meanwhile, the company has not issued an official statement about the incident, nor has it provided any information about the attack in the customer memo. Americold’s emphasis on rebuilding impacted systems and determining what data can be recovered suggests that a ransomware attack is most likely the cause.

Notably, Americold was hit by another cyberattack in November 2020, affecting its operations such as phone systems, email, inventory management, and order fulfillment. The November 2020 incident, according to multiple sources, was a ransomware attack.