The Clorox Company, famed for products like sanitizing wipes, PineSol, FreshStep cat litter, and Hidden Valley Ranch, reported disruptions in their operations due to a cyberattack in August.
The security filing released on Monday highlighted the unauthorized activities detected on their IT systems on Aug. 14. As a response, the company took several systems offline for remediation.
This cyberattack caused considerable damage to parts of Clorox's IT infrastructure, leading to potential implications for the availability of its products in the market.
In a recent update, Clorox mentioned that they are in the process of repairing the damaged IT systems and will be reintegrating the ones they had preemptively disconnected. The company anticipates a return to their standard automated order processing by the week of Sept. 25.
While production has already restarted at most of its manufacturing locations, the timeline for complete normalization of operations remains uncertain.
There are also financial implications for Clorox due to this cyber breach. The company warned of potential negative impacts on its Q1 financial results because of order processing delays and increased product outages. However, they mentioned that it's too early to ascertain the long-term financial impacts as recovery efforts continue.
As of now, the perpetrators behind the cyberattack remain unidentified, and the specific brands affected by the incident have not been disclosed.
Regarding external comments on the matter, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, refrained from making any statements.