Ransomware attack forces Irish food production giant Dole to pause North American operations

Irish food production giant Dole suffered a ransomware attack earlier this month that affected the supply of fruits and vegetables in North America.

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Dole is among the world’s largest producers of fruit and vegetables, running more than 250 processing plants and distribution centres worldwide. The company earned a revenue of $6.5 billion in 2021 and employs nearly 40,000 people in several countries.

In a press release published Thursday, the company said that it recently experienced a ransomware attack that affected daily operations. The company immediately launched an investigation with assistance from forensic experts to fix the issue and secure its systems.

The food production giant also confirmed that it has notified all relevant law enforcement authorities about the ransomware attack.

While Dole released a formal statement today, the senior vice president of the company’s Fresh Vegetables division, Emanuel Lazopoulos, confirmed in a memo to retailers on February 10 that the company was “in the midst of a Cyber Attack and have subsequently shut down our systems throughout North America.”

“Our plants are shut down for the day and all our shipments are on hold. Please bear with us as we navigate our way and hopefully, we will minimize this event,” the memo read.

After reports of the security incident surfaced, several grocery shoppers took to social media to complain about delayed deliveries of fruits and vegetables. Several grocery stores in Mexico and the New Mexico area also reported that they were unable to stock Dole salad kits since the beginning of last week.

While the company has confirmed that the ransomware attack had a “limited” impact on operations, it is not clear when the company will be able to produce salad kits at full capacity. The company is yet to confirm which threat actor is responsible for the security incident, how the internal network was infiltrated, or what kind of data was compromised.

In 2021, JBS Foods, the world’s largest processor of beef and poultry products, also suffered a massive ransomware attack that disrupted production and operations in the United States, Australia, the UK, Canada, and several other countries.

JBS Foods later said that it had to pay the equivalent of $11 million (£7.7 million) as ransom to the REvil ransomware gang to restore operations. “This was a very difficult decision to make for our company and for me personally. However, we felt this decision had to be made to prevent any potential risk for our customers” said Andre Nogueira, the CEO of JBS USA.