Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian Agricultural Watchdog has put forward allegations on PepsiCo that the latter has cyber attacked its database to siphon confidential information. But the American Food, Snack, and Beverage Corporation headquartered in New York denied these allegations and said that the Russian agency was trying to tarnish its image in public through baseless allegations.
Rosselkhoznadzor has further threatened PepsiCo to go serious on this issue by applying to the National Law Enforcement agencies over possible commercial espionage conducted by the American Multinational Corporation. And if PepsiCo is found guilty, it could face a permanent business ban in the entire Russia Federation and will also have to pay a heavy penalty.
As per the details available to our Cybersecurity Insiders, a representative of PepsiCo showed a document in the course of Rosselkhoznadzor’s meeting with Soyuzmoloko( A union of milk producers in Russia). It is said that the document was extremely confidential and was only meant for internal analysis.
The authorities of Rosselkhoznadzor immediately launched a probe on how Sergey Glushkov, the Vice President of PepsiCo- in charge of Corporate relations in Russia, Ukraine, CIS and Central Europe could gain hands on it.
It was later concluded by the officials of the Russian Agricultural Watchdog that a hacking attack by the PepsiCo company could have resulted in access to classified information.
The Russian watchdog alleges that PepsiCo is trying to take competitive advantage over Russian companies by having access to critical information about the watchdog’s laboratory monitoring of milk processing plants owned by the beverage giant. And all this is being done through commercial espionage.
More details are published in Russian business daily Vedomosti.
