Three headline-making cyber incidents in recent months, targeting food distribution, insurance, and automotive production, are stark reminders that no business is immune. Each used different tactics, but all underscore the need for vigilant, people‑centered resilience.
Disruptive Attacks on Top Brands
First, United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), the leading distributor for Whole Foods and over 30,000 other grocery stores, detected unauthorized activity in its systems on June 5. The breach forced a shutdown of ordering and invoicing systems, leaving shelves empty and scrambling logistics. The fallout included up to $400 million in lost sales and supply chain headaches nationwide.
Next, Aflac, one of the nation’s largest supplemental health insurers, disclosed a cyber breach on June 12. Attackers used social engineering to gain network access. While the intrusion was halted within hours, it exposed Social Security numbers, claims data, and health information, potentially affecting millions of customers—and came amid a growing spree of similar attacks across the insurance industry.
Most recently, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) suffered a debilitating cyber incident that forced a global shutdown of its IT systems. The resulting production and retail disruptions were significant. hitting vehicle manufacturing lines and sales during one of the busiest seasons. Thankfully, there's no evidence of compromised customer data, but the operational impact was severe.
A Warning to Small Businesses
These attacks didn’t all target your industry, but they could just as easily disrupt the critical functions your business relies on.
- Distributors & Retailers: A single system failure like UNFI’s can leave your supply chain paralyzed, especially when you're leaning on fallback processes.
- Professional Services & Insurance Proxies: Like Aflac’s breach, a social-engineering incident could expose sensitive client data or compromise operations.
- Manufacturers & Logistics: If a digital disruption hits your production or point-of-sale systems, a JLR-style shutdown becomes a real risk.
In every scenario, smaller businesses lack the deep pockets, insurance buffers, and dedicated response teams of large firms, and the recovery can be slow, costly, and reputation-shattering.
How to Stay Resilient; Simple, Smart Steps
Don’t wait for an attack to happen. Here are some steps Common Knowledge Technologies advises our clients to take to be safe.
- Map your vulnerable dependencies. Know which systems, partners, or vendors would take you offline if breached.
- Practice manual workarounds. Maintain simple fallback plans; like offline logs, paper forms, or script call procedures, that keep operations moving when tech fails.
- Rehearse, don’t assume. Run brief tabletop exercises with your team to test response plans and stress communication protocols.
- Empower your people. Train staff to spot phishing and impersonation and give them clear protocols when suspicious activity arises.
- Diversify critical pathways. Avoid single points of failure; whether it’s a distributor, supplier, or software provider—with backup options in place.
These strategies don’t require complex setups or heavy investments; just sensible planning grounded in real-world workflows.
Be Ready or Be Vulnerable
These breaches are a wake-up call. You don’t get to wait until your supply line, your client data, or your production floor is in crisis.
Schedule a “Cyber Resilience & Continuity Strategy Session” with CK-Tek.
We’ll help you map your risks, simulate disruptions, and lay out a human-centered plan to keep your business running, no matter what hits.
