UPDATE: Lion says there is no evidence of any data breaches following a cyber attack on 9 June. In a statement on 10 June, the company said as soon as the attack occurred it shut down all its systems.
While it has made “substantial progress” in diagnosis and recovery planning, it is still working with cyber experts to determine how much longer its systems will be affected.
Manual systems have been put in place to take orders and ship products, it said, conceding it was “not perfect” and impacting its clients.
“This attack could not have come at a worse time for Lion, particularly for our valued pub and club customers who are in the very early stages of recovery following the COVID-19 closures. They are in the early stages of rebuilding, restocking and reengaging their staff.
“We have teams working around the clock to bring our systems back online safely. Again, we apologise for the inconvenience this has caused our suppliers, customers and our broader supply chain,” the company said.
Brewing had continued during the COVID-19 shutdown, so there is a good supply of product, but “this attack has impacted crucial aspects of the brewing process. We operate multiple large-scale breweries, which are heavily reliant on IT infrastructure”.
Lion Dairy & Drinks
While parts of customer service are still offline, because of the fresh nature of the business there have been some service misses in some channels. There has been no impact to the collection of milk or fruit.
“We are continuing to do all we can to ensure we can service the demand of our customers and have a team of people working with customers to assist with ordering and delivery,” it said.
A cyber attack on brewer Lion has forced the company to shut down its IT systems.
The incident occurred yesterday (9 June). A statement from the company said it had “taken the precaution of shutting down its IT systems, causing some disruption to our suppliers and customers.
“We’re working with expert advisors to address the issue. We have alerted the authorities and are working hard to minimise disruption to customers and suppliers.
“We will provide further updates when we can, and we thank our customers and suppliers for their patience.”
Logistics company Toll Group suffered two major cyber attacks earlier this year, causing it to close internal and customer-facing systems. It was revealed the first attack came from Russian-based hackers demanding a ransom to unlock Toll’s systems. For more than a month the company couldn’t tell customers where their parcels were.
Other recent large-scale ransomeware attacks include ServiceNSW and BlueScope Steel.
Data on cyber-attacks are sketchy, but cyber security consulting is lucrative and expanding. Research from Gartner in 2019 said the market grew 13.5 per cent in 2018 alone (from US$19 billion to US$21.6 billion).
Food & Drink Business understands that the attack on Lion poses no risk to stock availability.
In February the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approved the proposed $600 million acquisition of Lion Dairy & Drinks by China Mengniu Dairy Company, citing “relatively low” levels of aggregation for raw milk purchases (Food & Drink Business 21/02/2020).
The deal still needs approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
