Coca-Cola's Fairlife halts US dairy production after a ransomware attack

Coca-Cola disclosed in a securities filing that a ransomware attack on its Fairlife dairy subsidiary has disrupted operations and temporarily suspended production across the United States. The company said Fairlife detected unauthorized access to some systems, including production-related systems, and that it activated incident response and business continuity plans, brought in outside experts, and notified law enforcement. It says product quality and safety were not affected, and Canadian operations continue. The full impact is still being investigated, and no ransomware group has been named. Ransomware at food and beverage producers has caused weeks-long shutdowns and empty shelves in past incidents.

Check

Manufacturers should review their ability to keep production running during a cyberattack, confirm that business and production systems are segmented, and test backups and incident-response and continuity plans against a ransomware scenario.

Affected

Manufacturers and food and beverage producers whose production depends on connected systems; a ransomware attack can force a full production halt even when product safety is unaffected, as with Fairlife's US suspension.

Fix

Segment production and business networks, maintain tested offline backups, enforce phishing-resistant MFA on remote access, rehearse recovery, and prepare business-continuity plans that keep critical operations running during a systems shutdown.