Blue Yonder, a prominent software supply-chain company serving grocery stores in the US and UK, as well as Fortune 500 firms, announced it was targeted in a ransomware attack on November 21, 2024. The attack disrupted the private cloud services the Arizona-based company provides to some clients, though its public cloud environment remains unaffected.
Blue Yonder, which was acquired by Panasonic in 2021, is working closely with clients to mitigate the impact. "We experienced disruptions to our managed services hosted environment due to a ransomware incident," the company said in a public statement. As of Saturday, Blue Yonder reported making "steady progress" in recovery but could not provide a definitive timeline for full restoration.
In the UK, the attack has already caused significant disruptions. Morrisons, which operates nearly 500 stores, reported delays in its supply chain due to the outage. "We have reverted to a backup process, but the outage has impacted the smooth flow of goods to our stores," a spokesperson said.
Similarly, Sainsbury's confirmed it had activated contingency plans to address the issues caused by the Blue Yonder outage.
Blue Yonder's US clients include major grocery chains like Albertsons (parent company of Safeway and Jewel-Osco) and Kroger (parent company of Ralphs and Fred Meyer). Both companies declined to comment on the incident.
Other corporate users of Blue Yonder’s software, including Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch, have yet to comment on whether they were affected.
Blue Yonder is reportedly collaborating with impacted customers to restore operations and mitigate any fallout from the attack. However, the scope of the breach and whether customer data was compromised have not yet been disclosed.
This incident highlights the potential vulnerabilities in supply chain software and underscores the need for robust cybersecurity measures in critical infrastructure.
