Ransomware Attack Costs Hanesbrands $100 Million in Lost Sales

It’s clear ransomware attacks can force victims to pay up, but they can also crater a company’s earnings potential. Case in point: apparel maker Hanesbrands estimates it lost $100 million in sales last quarter after suffering a ransomware attack. 

Hanesbrands originally reported the attack in late May. But on Thursday, the company revealed in an earnings statement(Opens in a new window) that the incident prevented it from fulfilling product orders for three weeks during Q2. This derailed its ability to purchase new supplies, ship orders, and process payments for brands including Hanes, Champion, and Playtex.  

The attack was detected over the apparel maker’s IT systems on May 24 and eventually disrupted the company’s global supply chain. Ransomware is typically designed to encrypt entire fleets of computers and demand victims pay up to free them. So to recover from the attack, Hanesbrands had to re-secure its data, rebuild crucial systems, and deal with the ransomware infection across various machines. 

It remains unclear which ransomware group struck Hanesbrands, and if the company ever paid the ransom. But Hanesbrands says it contained the attack and restored the company’s IT systems, although it had to pay $15 million to address the supply chain disruption.  

“Despite the disruption, the company shipped all Innerwear back-to-school seasonal commitments on time and in full,” Hanesbrands added in its earnings report. 

Hanesbrands didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a SEC filing(Opens in a new window), the apparel maker said: “There is no ongoing operational impact on the company’s ability to provide its products and services.” The apparel maker also plans on providing breach notifications as it continues to review the impact from the attack.