Lion: Cyber attack and IT system failure block the normal manufacturing operations and customer service

Lion Cyber incident update 15 June 2020

15-Jun-2020 - Australia

Our investigations have shown that a partial IT system outage at Lion is a result of a ransomware attack. In response, we immediately shut down key systems as a precaution.

Our IT teams and expert cyber advisors have continued working throughout the weekend to investigate this incident, working to bring systems back online safely.

We have made good progress, however there is still some way to go before we can resume our normal manufacturing operations and customer service.

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Current impact on Lion’s operations

Across our Australian and New Zealand adult beverages businesses, we continue to have limited visibility of our products in our systems. We’re working to bring our breweries back online as soon as possible, hoping to get a number of our breweries back up and running very soon.

We apologise to our consumers and customers, especially those who are only just getting their own venues back up and running following COVID-19 closures. We thank them for their patience as we do everything we can to get back to normal supply levels.

Lion Australia

The latest impacts include a number of temporary shortages or out-of-stocks across both packaged (bottle/can) and keg brands.

While our systems are offline, we have worked very hard to be able to supply a limited number of key products to our customers. We will continue to accept and fulfil orders as best we can, using interim manual processes where we need to.

Lion New Zealand

Whilst our systems are impacted, we are working hard to be able to supply key products to our customers. We have sufficient supply of the majority of our pack beer brands but we are experiencing temporary shortages of some of our brands of keg beer. Our Customer Call Centre and ordering systems are now operational. Speight’s Brewery has begun to commence production again today.

Lion Dairy & Drinks

In the Dairy & Drinks Business, we continue to experience some interruptions at sites across our manufacturing network and some parts of our customer service systems remain offline. Unfortunately, due to the nature of fresh dairy and juice products we have experienced some service misses across our customers. We are continuing to do all we can to service customer demand, including having our people work with customers to assist with manual ordering and delivery and moving to manufacture different products at our various dairy sites across the network.

We appreciate the ongoing support and patience of our customers, network partners, suppliers and consumers. There has been no impact to the collection of milk from our dairy farmers partners across Australia or fruit from our growers.

Update on our recovery efforts

The restoration process is taking time but it’s important that we do this methodically and safely as we work to resume normal business operations.

There remains no evidence that any of the information contained in our system (including financial or personal information) has been affected. This is something that we will continue to review closely as part of our ongoing investigations.

We have notified the authorities of the incident; and we will work alongside the relevant government authorities, law enforcement agencies and privacy regulators, as required.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to be vigilant about cyber safety, particularly in terms of telephone, SMS, email and social media phishing scams requesting personal information or payment of money. It’s advisable to avoid opening attachments from unknown senders and ensure that any communications are legitimate before responding. 

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1166706/lion-cyber-attack-and-it-system-failure-block-the-normal-manufacturing-operations-and-customer-service.html