Maple Leaf Foods still working to recover from outage caused by cyberattack
The Canadian Press
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is still working to restore operations after being hit by a cyberattack over the weekend, the company said Tuesday.
Chief executive Michael McCain said all facilities ran on Monday but problems remain as their business continuity teams figure out process-by-process manual workarounds, while both the team and the company's IT division work to recover the integrity of the system.
"I don't think we ran optimally for sure. On day one, I can guarantee that. But we all walked away from our calls last night thinking how impressed we were with how much they got done in the matter of one day," said McCain on an earnings call.
He didn't go into detail on what functions were hit worse than others, but said the disruption was "comprehensive," while noting they do have workarounds.
"This is not something that is unexpected in industry today, as much as it's a scourge of modern technology, but I feel very confident in the team of people that we have in place to ensure the continuity of the business."
Chief financial officer Geert Verellen said a full resolution of the outage will take some time and result in some operational service disruptions, and that the company will work through the issues with customers and vendors.
He said the company had a third-quarter loss of $229.5 million as it took a one-time charge related to the value of its plant protein business.
The company said the loss amounted to $1.86 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $44.5 million or 36 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Maple Leaf said its most recent quarter included a $190.9-million one-time non-cash impairment charge related to its plant protein group and a $31.5-million decrease in the fair value of biological assets.
On an adjusted basis, Maple Leaf said it lost a penny per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 38 cents per share in the same quarter last year as a result of weaker commercial performance due to inflation and labour challenges.
Sales in the quarter totalled $1.23 billion, up from $1.19 billion in the third quarter of 2021.
The company said the increase was driven by higher sales in its meat protein group, partially offset by lower sales in the plant protein group.
Empire tight-lipped as IT problems affect pharmacies at Sobeys and other stores
, The Canadian Press
Nov 8, 2022
Empire Co. Ltd. remained tight-lipped Tuesday about computer system issues that are still impeding customers seeking prescriptions at some pharmacies it operates.
The Nova Scotia-based company issued a brief statement Monday confirming that an "IT systems issue” affecting certain pharmacies has caused “technical difficulties” in filling prescriptions.
Issues at Empire-operated pharmacies, including Sobeys pharmacies and Lawtons Drugs, were first reported over the weekend, and some locations in Halifax Tuesday had signs posted warning customers of the ongoing technical problem. "Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to access your records to fill a prescription," a sign at one pharmacy counter said.
Empire did not respond to questions Tuesday about the cause of the IT problem and has not said when it expects it to be resolved. In its Monday statement, the company said it remains “committed to the continuity of care for all its pharmacy patients.”
Anne Genge, the CEO of Alexio, an Ontario-based cybersecurity company that specializes in health care, said the situation is reminiscent of the cyberattack that targeted Newfoundland and Labrador’s health system last year.
“The issue here is probably the same as what we saw last year in Newfoundland: a ransomware attack,” she said in an interview Tuesday. A ransomware attack is when hackers steal or encrypt sensitive information and demand a payment to release it.
Genge said the scale of Empire's system outage and the lack of public communication from the company lead her to believe that this type of cyberattack may be behind the technical problems.
She said it would not be surprising for Empire to keep relatively quiet about the IT problems if the company were working on a plan to restore the system or negotiate with a possible cyber attacker. “They tend to not talk about things until they’ve got it sorted out,” she said of organizations facing ransomware attacks.
With about $30.5 billion in annual sales and 130,000 employees, Empire's stable of retail outlets include 1,598 stores under a number of different banners, including IGA, Safeway, Foodland, FreshCo, Needs, Thrifty Foods, Rachelle-Béry and Bonichoix.
"Our sole focus right now is on getting this problem rectified and we will provide further updates as relevant information becomes available," Pierre St-Laurent, Empire's chief operating officer, said in the Monday statement.
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