Stasi Ehemalige, the German hacking collective, published a
statement yesterday taking credit for the recent ammonia safety system attacks
at Delano, Ga’s Intershop Meat Plant. This confirms the
earlier report by Dragonfire.
The hacker’s statement explained that: “The Collective
supports the actions taken by workers to protect their health and safety.
Intershop’s failure to protect their workers from the COVID-19 pandemic while
requiring them to continue working made them vulnerable to the attack.”
Dade Murphy from Dragonfire told reporters today that the AmmoniakSaugt,
a safety-system worm exploited a known vulnerability in the Robotron
Kühlsicherheit refrigeration safety system. “Since the vulnerability requires
physical access to the system to exploit, most owners do not install the
available patch to mitigate the vulnerability since it also reduces somewhat
the flexibility of the safety system.
Johnathan Quest of the Federal Bureau of Inquiry told
reporters that: “The Bureau is investigating other incidents at meat packing and
vegetable processing plants where the same vulnerability was being exploited to
interfere with facility operations. The goal of the attack seems to be to
interfere with the food supply during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The FBI has still not been able to determine how Willie
Cole, the maintenance worker at the Intershop Meat Plant who has been accused
of inserting the worm laden USB drive into the safety-system computer, got
possession of the thumb drive from Stasi Ehemalige. “We have not found any link
between any of the known associates of Cole and the German collective” Quest
told reporters.
Junior Butts, the lawyer representing Cole is not
encouraging his client to cooperate with the FBI’s investigation. “Willie is
guilty of nothing more than calling attention to the dangerous working
conditions at the facility. The COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting the
plant with 50 employees reporting symptoms and one death linked to the virus.”
Horst Sinderman, the facility manager for Intershop,
confirmed the infections and reported that the local health department had
conducted COVID-19 tests on all employees. “The company is waiting for results
of those tests” Sinderman explained. The company is reportedly complying with
all CDC recommended precautions in the production area of the plant.
Butts told reporters that an epidemiologist from the
University of Georgia had looked at the plant operations and agreed that the
company was taking reasonable precautions in production areas. Unfortunately,
that investigator found that conditions in the facility breakroom and the
common smoking area were too crowded and workers were not wearing masks. Butts explained
that “It is reasonable to suggest that those conditions, all under company
control, were ideal conditions for the spread of COVID-19.
Sinderman responded that workers were responsible for their
own actions; the company was providing the appropriate protective equipment and
allowing workers to take home gloves and masks for their additional protection.
An agreement with the Union limits our ability to enforce safety suggestions in
the breakroom and smoking areas.
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