Clorox sees cybersecurity attack impact as ‘material’ to Q1 financial results

In a regulatory filing, Clorox noted that on August 14, The Clorox Company announced that it had identified unauthorized activity on some of its Information Technology, or IT, systems and took immediate steps to stop and remediate the activity, including taking certain systems offline. “The company implemented its business continuity plans and began manual ordering and processing procedures shortly thereafter at a reduced rate of operations. The company is operating at a lower rate of order processing and has recently begun to experience an elevated level of consumer product availability issues. Based on the information available to date, the company believes the unauthorized activity is contained due to the steps the company has taken to address the incident. The cybersecurity attack damaged portions of the company’s IT infrastructure, which caused widescale disruption of Clorox’s operations. The company is repairing the infrastructure and is reintegrating the systems that were proactively taken offline. The company expects to begin the process of transitioning back to normal automated order processing the week of Sept. 25. Clorox has already resumed production at the vast majority of its manufacturing sites and expects the ramp up to full production to occur over time. At this time, the company cannot estimate how long it will take to resume fully normalized operations. Clorox is still evaluating the extent of the financial and business impact. Due to the order processing delays and elevated level of product outages, the company now believes the impact will be material on Q1 financial results. It is premature for the company to determine longer-term impact, including fiscal year outlook, given the ongoing recovery. The company will provide an update as to financial impact after it has increased visibility,” Clorox stated in the filing.