Cyberattack on food giant Dole temporarily shut down North American production, memo says

A cyberattack earlier this month caused food giant Dole to temporarily shut down North American production, according to a company memo.

“Dole Food Company is in the midst of a Cyber Attack and have subsequently shut down our systems throughout North America,” Emanuel Lazopoulos, senior vice president at Dole’s Fresh Vegetables division, said in a Feb. 10 memo obtained by CNN.

Dole has four processing plants in the country, including in Springfield, and employs more than 3,000 people, according to CNN.

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“Upon learning of this incident, Dole moved quickly to contain the threat and engaged leading third-party cybersecurity experts, who have been working in partnership with Dole’s internal teams to remediate the issue and secure systems,” a company spokesperson said in a release sent to News Center 7.

It is not immediately known how long the company had to keep production offline.

Dole said the company has notified law enforcement about the incident and they are continuing to investigate the scope of the cyberattack.

We are working to learn how long operations were limited and who may have been impacted.

We will update this story as new information becomes available.

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