Canadian packaged meats giant Maple Leaf Foods fell victim to a cyberattack on Sunday, which prompted multiple system outages on operation disruptions at multiple facilities.
Maple Leaf Foods is Canada’s largest prepared meats and poultry food producer. It operates 21 manufacturing facilities, has over 14,000 employees, and contracts over 700 barns in the country. In 2021, the company generated $3.3 billion in sales.
In a Sunday press release, Maple Leaf Foods said it became aware of the attack over the weekend and immediately began working with cybersecurity and third-party specialists to investigate the outage.
Maple Leaf also said it expected ongoing service and operational disruptions while it worked to resolve the outage, as there’s no estimated timeline for when its system will be restored.
“Upon learning of the incident, Maple Leaf Foods took immediate action and engaged cybersecurity and recovery experts,” the company said in the press release. “Its team of information systems professionals and third-party experts are working diligently with all available resources to investigate the outage and resolve the situation.”
“The Company is executing its business continuity plans as it works to restore the impacted systems; however, it expects that full resolution of the outage will take time and result in some operational and service disruptions,” Maple Leaf Foods added.
“The Company will continue to work with all its customers and suppliers to minimize these disruptions in order to continue delivering the nutritious food people need,” the meat packaging giant said.
At the moment, Maple Leaf Foods had not provided any details regarding the amount of impacted systems or sites following the cyberattack.
“At this time, we are focused on restoring business continuity,” a company spokesperson told reporters.
No threat group has yet claimed responsibility, and according to reports, there haven’t been any announcements on cybercrime forums listing Maple Leaf Foods among new victims.