Toyota Supply Chain Attack Flashes Red Light for Japan

The world's biggest car manufacturer, Japanese Toyota Motor Corporation, was forced to stop production and supply lines in over a dozen of its production facilities located in Japan. The shutdown was caused by a cyberattack that affected Kojima Industries - a business partner and supplier providing parts for Toyota.

Toyota Parts Supplier Suffers Cyberattack

According to Toyota, the forced halting of production in its factories will affect the manufacture of roughly 13,000 cars. The attack on the third-party supplier led to a halt in production because Toyota does not keep stockpiles of parts in its plants and is supplied on an ongoing basis, and the cyberattack disrupted this process.

There is no information provided by Toyota concerning the party behind the attack. The incident took place briefly after the Japanese government joined the West in joint sanctions against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, including excluding Russia from SWIFT transactions. There is no hard evidence that the incident is connected with Japan firmly picking a side in the matter, and Toyota has stated that they have no proof of it and this sort of thing requires in-depth investigation.

Shortly after the attack, Kojima Industries discovered an issue with a server. Upon rebooting the server, the company became aware that it was indeed infected and was faced with a "threatening message", which implies a ransomware attack.

Wider Concerns Over Cyber Security in Japan

The Japanese government voiced concerns over the state of cyber security when it comes to smaller but important enterprises. While the country's biggest businesses have robust security infrastructure in place, concerns are focused on mid-tier and small manufacturers and suppliers that are still vital in keeping the industry going.

Japan's Computer Emergency Response Team issues a security notice about an uptick in the use of the Emotet ransomware. There is no information about whether or not Emotet was once again used in this specific attack and neither Toyota nor Kojima Industries have provided any details.

In a previous security breach on a similar scale and of similar significance, Honda Motor had to suspend the production of motorbikes after suspicions of a cyber attack on its systems.