United Natural Foods attacked by hackers, business operations temporarily disrupted

United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) has become the victim of an unknown cyberattacker. Because of this, the company had to shut down some of its IT systems.

In an 8-K Filing addressed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and on its website, the wholesale distributor says it identified “unauthorized activity” on some of its IT systems on June 5th. As a precaution, the company decided to take down some of its systems and launch an investigation into the scope and nature of the incident.

“The company promptly activated its incident response plan and implemented containment measures, including proactively taking certain systems offline, which has temporarily impacted the company’s ability to fulfill and distribute customer orders,” the 8-K Filing states.

The incident has caused “temporary disruptions” to the day-to-day business operations. UNFI is working tirelessly to “assess, mitigate, and remediate the incident” with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts. Relevant law enforcement agencies have been notified about the incident and the latest developments.

To keep the business going and continue servicing its customers, UNFI has implemented workarounds for certain operations. IT experts are continuing to work to restore the company’s systems to safely bring them back online. When exactly this will be done is too soon to tell.

“The investigation to assess the impact and scope of the incident remains ongoing and is in its early stages,” the wholesale distributor concludes in its 8-K Filing.

As of writing, it remains unclear who’s responsible for the cyberattack. We also don’t know whether confidential corporate data has been exfiltrated, and if any ransom demands have been made.

United Natural Foods Inc. is the largest distributor of natural, organic, specialty, and conventional grocery products and non-food products in the United States and Canada. The Rhode Island-based company has 53 distribution centers, over 11,000 suppliers, and 30,000 locations, including supermarket chains, e-commerce providers, independent retailers, and natural product superstores.

UNFI recorded over $31.6 billion in annual revenues and a gross profit of over $4.2 billion last year. According to the latest numbers, well over 28,000 people are employed by the company.