Cyber Attack Halts Breweries In Australia

On June 8, Australian beverages giant, Lion, home to several craft breweries, was hit by a major cyber attack causing several of its production facilities to shut down.

Contacted by The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, Lion confirmed it had been hit by a cyber attack that had forced it to shut down its IT systems to limit its spread, disrupting the scheduled brewing process at several of its breweries, which more than ever are reliant on software…

“We are working with expert advisors to address the issue. We have alerted the authorities and are working hard to minimize disruption to customers and suppliers. We will provide further updates when we can, and we thank our customers and suppliers for their patience.”

On June 12, Lion, which is now owned by Kirin Holdings, issued an update acknowledging that its IT crisis was still unresolved and that it was thought to be a ransomware attack, which is even more concerning.

Ransomware is a form of malware in which rogue software code effectively holds a user’s computer hostage until a “ransom” fee is paid. Upon compromising a computer system, ransomware will typically either lock a user’s system or encrypt files on the computer and then demand payment before the system or files will be restored.

“Our focus is on bringing systems back online safely so we can resume our business as usual manufacturing, and customer services,” Lion said in a statement. ”This is taking some time, but it is necessary that we work through this properly.”

According to the Drinks Business, Lion has instated manual systems to deal with customer orders, which were also disrupted, but admitted that this was “imperfect”.

Lion does not believe there was a data breach, but is working with government and law enforcement agencies to understand the nature of the issue

Based in Sidney, Australia, Lion owns craft beer brands including Panhead and Emerson’s in New Zealand and Australia’s Little World Beverages which produces craft brands such as Little Creatures and White Rabbit.

Lion also owns Fourpure and Magic Rock. Breweries in the UK.

In November, 2019 Lion announced the acquisition of New Belgium Brewing independent craft breweries in the US.

Its parent company Kirin Holdings, is home to Kirin Brewery Company and Kirin Beverage Company who jointly own San Miguel Brewery which has a majority stake in Avery Brewing in the US and a 24.5% stake in Brooklyn Brewery.

“We’re working to bring our breweries back online as soon as possible,” Lion said in an update on Friday.

“In the meantime, we will be managing our stock levels very closely and may see some temporary shortages.”