Uncle Intel, largest cold/frozen storage operation in the US has had systems completely shut down

Probably Ransomeware rather than a hack. All you need is one person to click on something with the wrong AV/Malware/Ransomware package in place and certain systems not patched to the latest and greatest versions.

A twitter thread about this

[link to mobile.twitter.com (secure)]

Various youtubers have been shouting from the rooftops about this for months and here it is

OP created this uncle intel thread almost 11 hours ago and now I’m seeing it on twitter across multiple posts

Great work OP

Any updates? Is the system back to normal or is it going to cause major disruptions in the food supply??

Last Edited by Samus79 on 11/17/2020 12:42 AM

Maybe this is to accelerate the switch to blockchain tracking technologies like vechain and digibyte.

Update, for those who said I was larping, here's the news


[link to www.bleepingcomputer.com (secure)]

It was a cyber attack

You go figure if you think this is a coincidence or if a cyber attack on our food distribution system the week before thanksgiving might be something more sinister.....

This might be the start of the “Dark Winter”

Nope not a coincidence. Given the timing. Food and vaccine distribution and a cold storage facility. This all lines up together.

What sort of delays do you see, OP

Back on October 14, 1970 the Chinese detonated a 3.4 Mt air burst nuclear device. It's name was Chic-11. The fallout spread to the USA and contaminated the milk supply with Strontium 90...

It was in many papers, at that time...

They have taken it out of the search engines. You can't find it, even though I distinctly remember it and lived through that time period...

It's been Mandela Effected...

Please keep us informed of what is going on and what implications this will have for the food supply.


.

Wonder if the hack was to see the cold storage response time? That sounds crazy, but Im thinking "how long can you turn the freezers off before anyone knows and the vaccine is destroyed?" Maybe that was data accessed while everything else was going on.

Great thread

Almost certainly, an automated invasion of the cloud that scared security personnel, who preferred to pull the plug on all systems until they understood the damage.

More and more intelligent systems, more and more dumb people, a result that is so common and predictable.

I can bet they will operate via whatsapp and spreadsheets for a few weeks and then everything goes back to normal.

Despite the timing I see no relation to the pandemic, it is 2020, all systems and personnel are stressed, and under pressure we all fail, it is only a matter of time.

OP here. Quick update today.

Americold’s internal warehouse management system is back up, and we are making some shipments. Very touchy situation as they restored from an ‘image’ at close of business Friday.

All phones/email are still completely down. I have my logistics supervisor stopping in twice today with paper and pens working with the Americold team to establish further pickup/dropoff appointments.

We are doin everything we can to make sure you get the yummy stuff to the grocers/restarants this holiday season. That being said, real damage has already been done.

Thanks for the update OP! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Thanks to all that works in the background and backbone of our country. Keeping America fed! :)

Tyson?

Asking for a friend...

Soooooo.....how close are you w/ GM in Allentown? Any chance you might be able to put in a good word for (2) 8pm inbound delivery appts so they get unloaded?

Any chance you have a contact @ Belvidere location? Had a 4pm there today turned away. Told him "We can't receive you today and don't know when we'll be able to." Paying driver a layover and hoping they'll unload him tomorrow... he's going back in the morning.

Shoot.... forgot to also ask about ATL Westgate... have another inbound for there too.

SleepysDad any chance you can help me get drivers unloaded at Belvidere & Allentown/Fogelsville?

FYI All on this thread (and the idiots he keep bringing up vaccines when this is about Food & Beverage):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• Americold experienced a system wide cyber-attack impacting their global operations
• This impacted their ability to receive and load orders from their facilities as well as their email servers
• As of this morning 11/17 Americold have since put work arounds in place to restore partial service in most locations allowing them to ship and receive product with the exception of Rochelle IL and Perryville MD
• Americold are currently working around the clock to restore full service at all sites including their ability to receive and send email. Any communication with Americold should be done by phone at this time
• All customers with appointments should plan to have their carriers show up to be loaded at their scheduled times except for Rochelle and Perryville
• Our Customer Development and Customer operations team will be working directly with customers to re-schedule any missed loads due to this service interruption
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At this time I called the Belvidere location and the phones work although I cannot reach anyone. I've also sent an email to multiple contacts and so far have not received an email kickback (yesterday the kickback was returned almost immediately).

I remember hearing about that as a kid. My parents were adamant about not buying milk for awhile but at some point they were told it was safe and the whole thing was overblown or something so things went back to normal. There are several major historical events like this that very few people remember. Another is the Mount St. Helen's eruption. You can find that online but most people don't remember it and if they do they've forgotten the enormity of it. The ash cloud was tremendous, blocked out the sun for days and landed as far north as southern Canada. It coated rooftops, roads and farm fields. The ash on the ground and in the air was so thick they sent out the guard to distribute supplies and masks in some places and it was actually causing roofs to collapse. Ours nearly did. My dad had to get up on our roof with a push broom because the sheet rock on the ceiling was cracking. Most people have no recollection of that at all even if they lived through it and you hardly ever hear it talked about in the media.

It's also amazing to me how few people remember or know that this nonsense with masks, social distancing, lock downs and so on has all happened before. Less than twenty years ago. During the first SARS "pandemic" under Bush, a lot of places in North America and Europe did essentially the same thing they're doing now. People were nowhere near as co-operative but none the less, leaders did it. I don't think quite as many places put in mask mandates but I know parts of California did. Stores put lines on the floor trying to control peoples movements and limited the number of people allowed inside. The news media has even reused some of the stories from back then. All of this was also done in the fifties during the Asian flu "pandemic" and the sixties during the Hong Kong Flu. People have short memories and what's worse is, these days if you can't find it online nobody believes you and if you do they say it's fake because it's online.

Yep. Just the usual.

Read the thread, ac. It's in there. Other ac's figured it out.

All set in Belvidere... Got a door but told "it could be awhile before we get to you"

Americold, those places are like the Loblaws. If one iota of the numbers on the paperwork is wrong then everything comes to a full stop.
Been to many of their facilities.
Everyone only can do their job, they will sit and stare at you not saying why everyone has halted work and you must be psychic to rectify the error.
They tend to be real nice people, but everyone is afraid of stepping on toes of other employees and management. Follow the SOP, follow the SOP, follow follow follow follow, follow the SOP.

Knowing how everything is run by the numbers, what's ordered, what's coming in, which dock, which level of cooling is required or dry storage, how long to off load and/or lumper. If you mess with the system it really makes for interesting times.

I got this confirmed by a high level individual at CVS.
They had the vaccines in storage for 3 months and were waiting a release date.