U.K. logistics firm Peter Green Chilled suffered a disruptive ransomware attack recently. This attack is disrupting refrigerated grocery supplies to some major British supermarkets. Customers mostly smaller producers were emailed last Thursday about order processing issues. They supply food to regional supermarkets in Somerset including Aldi Tesco and Sainsbury’s. The company stated it would not be able to process some orders due to this cyber incident. Peter Green Chilled told BBC News the attack occurred on the previous Wednesday. They claimed the company’s essential transport activities had not been directly impacted. However the full impact on their IT systems for placing orders remains unclear.
This incident follows a similar attack several years ago on firm Reed Boardall.
Reed Boardall is a much larger cold storage and refrigerated transport company. While Peter Green Chilled is a smaller supplier the impact is still significant. Some of its customers have warned their perishable products could spoil if not delivered. This is if they are unable to get products to retailers in a timely manner. The attack is also the latest to impact the wider British retail sector recently. Other recent incidents have impacted Marks & Spencer the Co-op and Harrods in London. These events highlight ongoing supply chain vulnerabilities to various cyber threats in the U.K.
This series of recent attacks has led to renewed calls for stronger government action.
Many are urging the British government to adopt a more aggressive ransomware approach. Another attack confirmed this week may expose domestic violence victims’ very sensitive personal details. Expert Gareth Mott suggested law enforcement should hack back against ransomware gangs’ systems. This “ideal response” would involve taking down the criminals’ infrastructure and stolen data. Mott acknowledged that successfully doing so is not an easy task for agencies. The U.K.’s National Crime Agency has had some successes like tackling the LockBit group. However its current capability to selectively take down most risky data breaches is questioned.
Official data shows ransomware attacks in the U.K. have risen year-on-year. This disturbing trend has unfortunately continued for the past five consecutive years now. Authorities are increasingly concerned that many victims are keeping these incidents entirely secret. This underreporting means available data provides only a partial view of the problem’s scale. A December 2023 committee warned government failures created a high risk of catastrophic attack. Despite a new government there has been no substantial new funding for disruption operations. The government proposed overhauling its ransomware response including banning public sector ransom payments. Mandatory incident reporting for all victims was also part of these reform proposals. Peter Green Chilled could not be reached for comment on their current situation. Their email system is only accepting messages from an allowed senders list now.
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