The Cadbury Factory is Under Cyber Attack

There are situations that arise in life that can leave you shaken.

Finding out that the Cadbury factory in Tassie has been the victim of a vicious (some would say soul-less) cyber attack, which has caused production to halt, is one of them.

Questions like; ‘how is this possible?’ and ‘why attack something so beautiful?’ are natural. As is the urgent desire for the facts, primarily what this means for your favourite blocks and bars.

Let’s start with the bad news. You might want to sit down for this one. Yes, the rumours are true. On Tuesday night, the Cadbury factory in Claremont, Tasmania was brought to its knees by a variation of the Petya virus. This crafty piece of malware locks up computer files with an almost unbreakable encryption and holds them to ransom. To release the files, a payment of $300 worth of bitcoin (a cyber currency) is demanded.

The first Cadbury knew of the attack was when a message appeared stating; “If you see this text, then your files are no longer accessible, because they have been encrypted. Perhaps you are busy looking for a way to recover your files, but don’t waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption service.”

Cadbury factory is under cyber attack — Image source: ABC

A global cyber attack

Cadbury is not the first or the only company to be targeted. The cyber spree has taken down servers at Russia’s biggest oil company and shut down computers at multinational businesses, including the Australian offices of global law firm DLA Piper.

At this stage, Cadbury is still working to restore their systems. This means that our favourite chocolate is not being magically produced by the Oompa Loompas at the factory (or the *cough* highly automated chocolate making machines they really use).

In a statement, Cadbury’s parent company Mondelez International said they weren’t sure when the systems would be up and running again but that they’ve got their IT wizards working round the clock to the get the situation sorted.

In the meantime, while we imagine tumbleweed blowing down half empty supermarket shelves where Cadbury used to be stocked, we’ve come up with a few ways to cope.

1. Buy all the chocolate –

There are times when it’s entirely acceptable to buy all the chocolate at once. Kids birthday parties, relationship breakdowns, cyber attacks. Get in now and stock up. Guard your stash with your life. Share with no-one.

2. Play down why you’re buying all the chocolate –

You don’t want to invoke panic, or worse, lose out to a friend who has the same taste as you and who hits the supermarket first. When the words ‘cyber attack’ and ‘Cadbury’ are floated, feign ignorance. Pretend it’s just a vicious rumour. Do not, under any circumstance, confirm that there might be a chocolate shortage.

3. Switch your allegiance to chocolate cake –

As far as we are aware, those cyber jerks haven’t targeted White Wings, Greens or Donna Hay. Switching your allegiance to chocolate cake and at a stretch, hot chocolate, is one way to get through the long, cold, Cadbury-free winter nights.