Lion Beverages hit by a Ransomware Cyber Attack

Australia based beverage and food company LION which also has active business operations in New Zealand is reported to have suffered a cyber attack early this week causing disruptions to its suppliers and customers.

Currently, the company is still investigating the incident deeply, and so is not in a position to confirm whether the cyberattack is a ransomware variant or not. But the company assured that its IT staff is trying its best to minimize the impact of disruption to its suppliers and clients.

Some media resources from Australia reported that the attack was the work of a competitor who was against the recent Chinese company Mengniu Diary $600m acquisition of Lion Drinks & Diary products. But the management of Lion Beverages has condemned this news strongly and said that it will provide affirmed details by this weekend.

Note 1- If the attack is suggested to be of ransomware variant then the company needs to rely on backup files to bring back the operations to normalcy. And might depend on the cyber insurance plan to recover the overhaul costs.

Note 2- As per the numbers released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a total of 18% of businesses reported cyber-attacks and data breaches between 2017-2018. And most of those belonged to the manufacturing, wholesale, and trade sectors.

Note 3- Lion is a subsidiary of Japan-based Kirin company and products and markets a range of wine, beer, cider wine, spirits, and other alcohol-based products such as hand sanitizers along with dairy products like cheese, flavored milk, juices, and soy products.