Meat Producer JBS Pays $11M in Bitcoin to Hackers

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JBS USA Holdings, the US division of Brazilian company JBS S.A., the largest meat producer in the world, has paid $11 million in Bitcoin as ransomware to the hackers who have attacked its systems.

The company, whose annual sales amount to $50 billion, was reportedly targeted by hacker group REvil some weeks ago. As a result, some sensible information of the company was locked, affecting the production of meat.

The hackers requested $11 million in Bitcoin to give the company access to the information again. Since the production of the company was being severely affected and JBS feared the hacker group could attack the company again, JBS decided to pay the ransom in order to resume its operations as soon as possible, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Andre Nogueira, chief executive of the Brazilian parent company, said:

“It was very painful to pay the criminals, but we did the right thing for our customers.”

Unfortunately, this is not the first time a big company is hit by a ransomware attack. US company Colonial Pipeline, the largest pipeline system for refined oil products in the US, recently paid another BTC ransom.