Clorox says its earnings will take a hit from cyberattack

A month after a cyberattack targeted Clorox, the company says its earnings will take some time to rebound from the incident.

The company had to take certain systems offline after it identified unauthorized activity on some of its information technology systems Aug. 14, it said in a regulatory filing Monday. Clorox then began manual ordering and processing procedures, which resulted in a reduced rate of operations.

The company said it is currently experiencing an “elevated level of consumer product availability issues.”

“The cybersecurity attack damaged portions of the Company’s IT infrastructure, which caused widescale disruption of Clorox’s operations,” the company wrote in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. “The Company is repairing the infrastructure and is reintegrating the systems that were proactively taken offline.”

Clorox said it expects to start transitioning back to automated order processing by the week of Sept. 25, noting that it “has already resumed production at the vast majority of its manufacturing sites and expects the ramp up to full production to occur over time.” However, it also said it cannot estimate how long it will be before the company fully resumes 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,” according to the filing.

There were previously shortages of Clorox products during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for cleaning aerosols and wipes jumped. In August of 2020, the president of Clorox said it was shipping nearly 1 million packages of wipes a day.