Netherlands-based supermarket chain Albert Heijn is facing a shortage of food supply because of a ransomware disruption that took place on its third party logistics provider Bakker Logistiek. The company says that the halt down in its supply chain might impact the supply of food materials such as packaged cheese to its customers.
But trade analysts say that the shortage of food is not because of the production, but due to a technical glitch that can be resolved through a pen and paper administrative set-up for a week.
Meanwhile, Bakker Logistiek that handled the stocking up of food apologized for the technical malfunction affecting the supplies and assured that its staff were working 24×7 to restore back the operations to normalcy.
Highly placed sources say that the ransomware attack targeted the database of Bakker Logistiek on April 2nd,2021 that forced its staff to take the help of pen and paper to fulfill the orders in the warehouse.
Cheese delivery was deeply impacted and has been halted from the past 3 days says a source.
An exploit of the Microsoft Exchange Server is said to have led the food supplier to halt its supplies to Albert Heijn that operates with over 1000 stores across the Country.
The kind of ransomware variant that hit the database of Bakker Logistiek and the hackers ransom demand is yet to be made public as the investigation on the cyber incident is still under progress.
Note- Ransomware is a kind of malware that encrypts a database until a ransom is paid. However, some ransomware spreading gangs have changed their tactics these days by stealing a portion of the data from the server and then locking it down from access. So, unconfirmed sources from Bakker suggest that the company might have become a victim to the file encrypting malware spreading gang that indulges in double extortion tactics.
