KITCHENER, ON – Waterloo Brewing has announced that it has lost approximately $2.1 million to a “social engineering cyberattack by a sophisticated third party that resulted in a wire transfer of the Company’s funds to a fraudulent third party account.”
According to a press release, the incident took place earlier this month, and “involved creditor employee impersonation and fraudulent wire transfer requests by such third party from the Company.”
Upon discovery of the loss of funds, the company opened an internal investigation to do analysis of activity in all of the company’s bank accounts, as well as a review of all internal systems, controls, and networks. It has also notified police services as well as the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and the United States’ Finance Crimes and Enforcement Network.
None of the stolen funds have been recovered at this time, and while attempts will continue, it is unclear if all or any of the money will be returned.
In the meantime, the company notes that the theft should have no “material impact on its business going forward or otherwise impact its near-term liquidity requirements or its ongoing operations.”
Source: Waterloo Brewing press release