Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Denso, a Toyota Motor Corp. supplier was targeted with a ransomware attack last week. It’s the latest in a series of disruptions for Toyota.

The Japanese auto supplier said that it detected unauthorized access on Thursday at Denso Automotive Deutschland GmbH. Denso’s spokesperson Izumi Saito said on Sunday that they “promptly responded” to the attack. She also said that the attack has not impacted Denso’s operations. 

The group that allegedly attacked Denso’s system is identified as Pandora. The threat actors threatened to disclose company documents and trade secrets on the dark web. They threatened to expose invoices, emails, diagrams, and more, according to Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions, a Japanese cybersecurity firm.

Pandora said they have access to more than 157,000 purchase orders, emails, product diagrams, and 1.4 TB of data, according to the (national cybersecurity news) report.

National cybersecurity news also reported that the threat group has also used ransomware against other companies demanding ransom in exchange for getting their data back.

Saito, Denso’s spokesperson declined to comment further about the cyberattack. Denso is the second-largest automotive supplier in the world, after Robert Bosch.

Toyota has been trying to increase the production of vehicles during the pandemic to meet the high demand. However, this incident is the second attack on Toyota. The company stopped domestic production in February 2022, after one of its suppliers, Kojima Industries was hit by a cyberattack.

CEO Akio Toyoda said that the company is reviewing its production plans due to these global disruptions and attacks on suppliers. The company said that is it cutting its production in Japan by 20% in April, 10% in May, and 5% in June.

Cyberattacks on Japanese companies have risen in the past few years. Manufacturing industries in Japan account for one of the largest targets of cyberattacks and ransomware.

Last year, Japanese tech giant Panasonic disclosed a six-month-long data breach in their system. Similarly, Olympus was hit by the BlackMatter ransomware group in September 2021 which affected its worldwide network.