Australian Food Manufacturing Data Breach, 6 June 2024

Four’N Twenty owner Patties Foods based in Victoria reportedly targeted in ‘data breach’

Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler, discovered two separate database exposures that were publicly accessible and non-password protected.

Source: Four’N Twenty owner Patties Foods reportedly targeted in ‘data breach’ | Mumbrella

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Patties Foods, the owner of popular servo pastry brand Four‘N Twenty, has been ‘targeted in a third-party data breach’. Founded in 1966, Patties Foods also operates Leggo’s, Lean Cuisine, Nanna’s, Chefs Pride, and Herbert Adams.

According to a Patties Foods spokesperson, this was not a data breach as such, but rather a case of data exposure on behalf of a third party – and one that has been quickly addressed at that.

Cybersecurity Researcher, Jeremiah Fowler, discovered and reported to WebsitePlanet about a non-password-protected database that contained 524k documents belonging to Patties Foods Limited, a leading provider of food services throughout Australia. The records included more than 25k invoices. The database also included evidence of ransomware.

This discovery pertained to two separate database exposures that were publicly accessible and non-password protected. The first was an exposed logging server that contained 496,296 records. These logs captured various types of information such as system errors, warnings, indexing operations, search queries, cluster health status, and other diagnostic data. They also exposed internal, customer, and vendor emails. Additionally, I identified a separate cloud storage database inside the logging records that contained 25,800 invoices and distribution records in .pdf and .xls formats. Upon further research, it was identified that the records belonged to Patties Foods Limited PFL. Patties Foods is an Australian food company known for producing a wide range of edible products. Founded in 1966, Patties is one of Australia’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of meat pies, sausage rolls, pastries, desserts, and frozen fruits.

However, documents indicate the IP address was managed by a company called Provenio.ai, a service provider which provides AI-powered productivity for the supply chain back-office to many well-known Australian companies.

Having discovered the exposed database, Fowler did what any self-respecting cyber security analyst would do and reported it to Provenio.ai, which said it was taking Fowler’s notification seriously.