What we know about alleged Ben E. Keith cyber attack
One of the country’s largest food distributors has left chefs, owners and restaurant staff across the nation scratching their heads and looking for answers after a disruption to service that began last week.
Fort Worth-based Ben E. Keith issued a public statement Monday regarding issues with its systems that left trucks unable to make deliveries to restaurants for days.
The full statement reads:
“Ben E. Keith recently detected unusual activity in our network. In response, we proactively disabled business systems to minimize risk for our business and our customers. We understand that our customers, employees, and business partners have been impacted by the outage and continue to work around the clock to fully restore our systems and operations. Our employees, customers and their customers are our top priority, and we are committed to getting back to business as usual as soon as possible.”
In an additional email response to The Oklahoman on Tuesday, David Werner, senior vice president of independent sales and marketing said, “We have made considerable progress restoring our systems and operations and are making deliveries to most of our customers. Our team will continue to work 24/7 until our systems and operations are operating at full capacity.”
Signs point to a likely ransomware cyber attack on Ben E. Keith, with the company pointing out “unusual activity” in its network. Though there has been no definitive confirmation from the company.
Twitter users, including some restaurant operators made similar claims, with some even citing that Ben E. Keith’s competitors were also potential victims.
In a Twitter thread, user Steve Webber (@snwebber), the owner of a Waffle Love franchise in Austin, Texas, wrote that “Sysco confirmed they were attacked but was able to fend off the attack on their system.”
Calls to Sysco Monday to verify the information were not returned.
While the exact number of restaurants affected by the problems at Ben E. Keith is unknown, the company services a 14-state area from New Mexico to Florida and Texas to Nebraska. And, in addition to restaurants, it also provides food distribution for hospitals, schools, nursing homes and other businesses.
Restaurants in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas posted publicly about facing issues.
Local restaurant Olde Orchard Restaurant, 326 Elm Ave. in Yukon, posted to Facebook on Thursday, March 16, about the problem, saying they would close early on Friday, March 17, to address the issue.
“One of our food distributors have had problems with their systems and we along with other customers nationwide have not been able to receive a shipment of products for the last two days,” the post said. “We may get product that we are having to pick up ourselves at their warehouse late tomorrow afternoon.”
Olde Orchard posted a photo in the post’s comments at 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 17, captioned “Picking up food now,” that showed a line of vehicles outside of the distributor’s warehouse.
It’s unclear when regular operations will resume. The company’s statement says it is working “around the clock” to solve the problem and get back to “business as usual as soon as possible.”
However, according to Webber’s Twitter thread, his own representative from the company has said resolving the problem “will take weeks.”
Oklahomans may face shortages and the absence of their favorite menu items when visiting local restaurants while owners work to find replacements and the issue is addressed.
Messaging at Sonic Drive-In restaurants seen Sunday was similar to during the pandemic, stating that “Due to nationwide supply issues,” certain items and ingredients might not be available.
Sonic headquarters didn’t respond Monday seeking confirmation that the messaging was due to the Ben E. Keith issue.