Asahi restarts beer production after cyber-attack

Japan | Asahi has partially restarted production at all six of its domestic breweries on 6 October, after it was forced to close them down following a cyber-attack that crippled its systems on 29 September. The incident brought production of iconic products, such as Asahi Super Dry beer, Nikka whisky, and Mitsuya cider, to a standstill. The suspended operations included order processing, shipping, and call centre services. Asahi operates 30 beer, beverage, and food production plants in Japan.

There were no “confirmed leakage of personal information of customer data” and its European operations, including the UK, were not affected. Asahi is the biggest brewer in Japan, but also owns global beer brands including Peroni, Pilsner Urquell, as well as Fullers in the UK.

Asahi said the re-opened breweries were “not yet fully operational”, and that two of its soft drinks plants that have partially re-opened were also not running at full capacity. It added there were a further five soft drinks factories that “will resume gradually in accordance with shipments”. All seven of its food plants have resumed operations, though they are also not yet fully operational.

The company reported that its breweries were producing only Super Dry beer, and that from 15 October it would resume shipments of 16 other beer products.

Cyber-attacks seek to cause maximum chaos

In the UK, a number of big businesses have been hit by cyber-attacks in recent months, including Jaguar Land Rover, retailers Harrods, Marks & Spencer and the Co-op, the BBC reported. Attacks increasingly go beyond data theft to cause operational chaos.

Manufacturing is now the most targeted industry for cyber-attacks worldwide, according to IBM’s X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. Criminals seek to paralyse operations and extract ransoms by shutting down mission-critical systems. Unfortunately, legacy operational technology environments – often not designed with security in mind – make for prime targets.

The cybersecurity expert George Foley from ESET Ireland commented: “The fact that attackers managed to halt production on this scale suggests they had deep access. It’s a reminder that operational continuity is just as critical as data protection and that the supply chain itself needs to be continuously monitored and hardened.”