News / UK supermarket supply chains hit by cyber attack on Blue Yonder

Dreamstime

Services may again be operational, but a cyber attack against US-based supply chain SaaS provider Blue Yonder has added further worries to logistics companies around ongoing geopolitical instability.

The attack last Thursday (21 November) affected an unknown number of Blue Yonder customers – in the UK, supermarkets Morrisons and Sainsbury’s both confirmed their systems had been knocked out of action.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told The Loadstar “service has since been restored”, although would not be drawn on how long the system was down, its impact, or if a backlog had been created.

A spokesperson for Morrisons told The Loadstar: “Last week Blue Yonder suffered an outage which impacted our warehouse management systems for fresh and produce, ambient and frozen are unaffected. We are currently operating on our back-up systems and we’re working very hard to deliver for our customers across the country.”

However, Morrisons’ suppliers told The Grocer magazine the attack had left them unable to deliver stock to depots, one noting on Friday it had cancelled all its chilled orders for the day, and warned customers some stock lines may fall below 60% availability.

A statement on Blue Yonder’s website said it had determined the disruption “to be the result of a ransomware incident, the Blue Yonder team has been working diligently together with external cybersecurity firms to make progress in their recovery process”.

Cyber security expert and founder and CEO of Dynarisk Andrew Martin told The Loadstar: “Unfortunately this is the second attack effecting UK food distribution, less than a month after Microlise earlier in November.

“While we do not know yet how hackers got in, companies should ensure they are managing identities and privileged access, using EDR solutions on endpoints, training staff members on information security policies and monitoring for cyber threat intelligence.”

Mr Martin also suggested companies consider cyber insurance and that those in the food supply ecosystem consider this latest attack an opportunity to learn from and ensure “they are taking appropriate steps for their organisations to protect themselves and their customers”.

DHL Supply Chain, as well as other leading UK supermarkets, including Asda, Tesco and Waitrose, also count themselves among Blue Yonder’s customers, but avoided being affected, a Tesco spokesperson confirmed to The Loadstar.

Meanwhile, with no group having come forward to claim responsibility, the attack comes in the wake of a series of threats that Russia may choose to target western supply chains as a response to the continuing support Ukraine receives from the Europe and the US.

Suspicions have already been cast on Moscow for a series of fires that have broken out across logistics warehouses since the summer, while a recent DHL aircraft crash has also had people raising questions.