JBS USA Holdings Inc. paid an $11 million ransom to cybercriminals who last week temporarily knocked out plants that process roughly one-fifth of the nation’s meat supply, the company’s chief executive said.
The ransom payment, in bitcoin, was made to shield JBS meat plants from further disruption and to limit the potential impact on restaurants, grocery stores and farmers that rely on JBS, said Andre Nogueira, chief executive of Brazilian meat company JBS SA’s
JBSS3,
U.S. division.
“It was very painful to pay the criminals, but we did the right thing for our customers,” Nogueira said Wednesday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He added that the payment was made after the majority of JBS plants were up and running again.
JBS is the world’s largest meat company by sales, processing beef, poultry, and pork from Australia to South America and Europe. In the U.S., the company is the biggest beef processor and a top supplier of chicken and pork. Its subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride Corp.
PPC,
also hit by the attack, is the second-largest U.S. poultry processor.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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