Supplies of Royal Canin pet food have been seriously affected by a global cyber attack. Computer hackers launched a crippling virus on computers worldwide which have affected hundreds of thousands of computers.
The cyber attack on June 27 disrupted computers at Russia’s biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms across Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States. The total number of attacks was unknown.
In South Africa, Royal Canin issued a statement to all pet food outlets explaining that because of the hack, it had shut down its production temporarily. This will affect food supplies.
The ransomware virus includes code known as “Eternal Blue”, which cyber security experts widely believe was stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and was also used in last month’s ransomware attack, named “WannaCry”.
The virus crippled computers running Microsoft Corp’s Windows by encrypting hard drives and overwriting files, then demanded a bitcoin ransom payment to restore access. More than 30 victims paid the ransom.
“We are continuing to investigate and will take appropriate action to protect customers,” a Microsoft spokesman said. Microsoft antivirus software detects and removes the virus.
Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency, a Cadbury chocolate factory in Australia, and US drugmaker Merck & Co were also affected by the cyber attack.
