Maple Leaf Foods confirms it was hit by ransomware, won’t pay attackers

UPDATE: Maple Leaf Foods has confirmed it was hit by ransomware, and that it won’t pay for the return of stolen data.

The Black Basta ransomware gang now lists Canadian meat processor Maple Leaf Foods as one of its victims. It isn’t clear but this could be related to the cyber incident the company acknowledged earlier this month.

At the time of the incident, a Maple Leaf Foods spokesperson said an IT outage was creating some operational and service disruptions that varied by business unit, plant, and site.

In reply to a request for comment by IT World Canada on the listing of its company by Black Basta, the company issued a statement saying, “We won’t dignify criminals by naming them.”

“Unfortunately, we know that the people behind this incident were able to gain unauthorized access to some of our data, and they are threatening to release it unless we pay a ransom, which we will not do.”

“We’re sorry this occurred and apologize for the frustration and challenges it may cause. We have invested significant resources into the security of our systems and take the confidentiality and security of the information in our possession very seriously. We are being vigilant in our response, taking purposeful action to do what we believe is right to minimize any disruption. We are also providing our Team Members with two years of credit monitoring services.

“The illegal acts that compromised our system and potentially put information at risk is intolerable and our company will not pay ransom to criminals. We are asking responsible people – including those in the media – not to entertain any ‘leads’ they get from stolen or compromised data and not to contact anyone based on illegally-obtained information.”

The statement added that working with experts it has been able to quickly and safely restore its IT systems.

According to a security industry source, the listing on the Black Basta site appeared within the last 24 hours. It posted multiple screenshots of various documents allegedly copied from the company, but made no specific claim as to the exact amount of data exfiltrated.

Black Basta has also taken credit for a recent attack on the Sobey’s supermarket…