Belgium & USA: Ransomware forces Duvel Moortgat to halt production

Belgian brewer Duvel Moortgat fell victim to ransomware, Techzine Europe reported on March 6.

The company subsequently decided to halt production of well-known beer brands such as Duvel, La Chouffe, Liefmans, De Koninck and Maredsous as a precautionary measure. Specifically, this involved four Belgian breweries and a brewery in America, where subsidiary Boulevard Brewing is located.

Duvel Moortgat noticed the ransomware attack during the night of Tuesday, March 5 to Wednesday, March 6. “At 1:30 a.m. last night, we received notification that our servers had been hacked,” said company spokesperson Ellen Aarts. During the hack, cybercriminals encrypted data.

The brewer says it does have the necessary backups in place. Production is, therefore, expected to resume as early as this week. Furthermore, it expects no shortages and therefore, supply will not be compromised: “We still have large stocks of beer.”

The brewer is now investigating the exact extent of the attack. Because even if production can run again through backups, it is important to check whether the hackers were able to steal sensitive information. Duvel Moortgat can then still decide to pay a ransom so that the hackers do not publish the sensitive data. So, paying ransom to resume production appears to be unnecessary in any case. It is not known what amount of ransom is being demanded.

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