‘Nasty’ cyber virus halts chocs factory
CADBURY has been forced to halt production of its famous chocolate bars in Tasmania after its computer systems were felled by the latest cyber attack sweeping the world.
Production ground to a halt at Cadbury’s Hobart factory when its parent company, Spanish food giant Mondelez, was hit by the Petya computer virus that erupted in Europe overnight and quickly spread to a host of multinational companies.
The Australian arms of delivery company TNT and law firm DLA Piper were also caught up in the attack, which experts fear will spread further and be more difficult to conquer than the WannaCry ransomware virus that infected 300,000 computers worldwide in May.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union’s Tasmanian secretary John Short says staff at the Cadbury factory were put on cleaning duties after production stopped about 9.30pm on Tuesday when computers crashed.
It could be days before production resumes at the factory, which produces about 50,000 tonnes of chocolate a year and employs 500 workers.
“From what I understand, if they’ve done everything right as far as taking precautions, it’s a matter of resetting the computer and then it’s all right,” Mr Short said.
Mondelez confirmed its international IT network was down.
“Limited production is still running at some of our five sites across Australia and New Zealand,” a spokesperson said.
The Federal Government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre has offered help to companies hit by Petya.
“This ransomware attack is a wake-up call to all Australian businesses to regularly back up their data and install the latest security patches,” Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security Dan Tehan said.
Petya interrupted some of TNT’s deliveries in Australia and stopped DLA Piper’s lawyers communicating with clients.
Qantas also reported problems with its computer booking system, but said the problems were unrelated to Petya.
Banks, airports and the state power company in Ukraine were among the first to be hit by the Petya virus, followed by Russia’s biggest oil firm Rosneft, Danish shipping giant Maersk, US drug maker Merck, London-based adver- tising firm WPP and French construction firm St Gobain.
Some cyber experts fear more companies will be affected in coming days.
Nick Savvides, manager of cyber security strategy at Symantec, said while both Petya and WannaCry demanded ransoms from computer users, the latest attack was potentially more damaging.
Mr Savvides said Petya was able to spread after people opened emails with fake attachments which allowed the virus to spread across computer networks lacking adequate security protections.
“This particular variant is extra nasty,” he said.
“This locks the whole computer. You can’t do anything with it. You have to wipe it and start again, which is why the clean-up is going to be more labour intensive than previous infections.”