The Clorox Company said last week that it is struggling to keep up with consumer demand as it continues to contain the damage from a cyberattack in August and predicted that the impact of the attack will be reflected in its Q1 earnings next year, NPR reported.
The Oakland, California company, whose brands also include Brita, Glad, Pine-Sol, and Burt’s Bees, said in a statement last Tuesday that it believes the hack has been “contained” but consumers could still see some product shortages at the stores.
According to the statement, Clorox is still operating at a lower processing rate due to the August cyberattack on its IT infrastructure and the company is aware that there is an “elevated level of consumer product availability issues.”
Clorox Company announced on August 14 that it identified “unusual activity” on its IT infrastructure. It was later confirmed that the IT systems had been hacked.
The cyberattack disrupted the company’s systems so much that Clorox had to process orders manually. According to the statement, the company expects to return to its automated order processing this week.
However, Clorox said it could not estimate how long before it fully resumes normal operations.
The company said production has resumed at the “vast majority” of its manufacturing plants as it continues to repair the damaged sections of its IT systems.
Meanwhile, the company is continuing to evaluate the financial and business impact of last month’s cyberattack.
In a regulatory filing last Monday, Clorox said that the impact of the delay in processing orders and the elevated product outages will be evident in its Q1 financial results. However, the company said it is too early to determine the long-term impact of the attack, particularly for the next fiscal year.
According to The Hill, Clorox experienced a shortage of products during the early months of the pandemic when demand for cleaning supplies skyrocketed. In August 2020, the president of the company said Clorox was shipping almost 1 million packages of its cleaning wipes every day.
