Cyberattack hits Toyota supplier Denso, no impact on operations

Tokyo

DENSO Corp, a top Toyota Motor supplier, was targeted by a ransomeware attack last week, the car parts maker said, the latest in a series of potential disruptions for the world's biggest carmaker.

Denso "promptly responded" to an unauthorised access to its networks in Germany on Thursday, spokeswoman Izumi Saito said on Sunday (Mar 13). At the moment Denso's operations are not being impacted by the attack, she said.

The incident marks the second recent cyberattack against a Toyota supplier. The carmaker idled all of its factories in Japan two weeks ago after Kojima Press Industry was hit by an attack to its systems.

Although production resumed after a day, the incident was yet another blow to Toyota as it was seeking to recover production lost in recent months to chip shortages and Covid-related disruptions.

Pandora, the group that allegedly accessed Denso's systems, threatened to disclose the supplier's trade secrets including e-mail, invoices and part diagrams on a website on the dark web, national broadcaster NHK reported earlier, citing Japanese cyber security firm Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions. Denso spokeswoman Saito declined to comment on further details regarding the cyberattack.

Toyota, which had been relatively resilient to supply chain snags through most of the pandemic, has been trying to ramp up production to make up for lost output and meet soaring global demand for new vehicles.

Akio Toyoda, the carmaker's chief executive officer, said last week that the company would have to review its production plans due to mounting global disruptions.

The carmaker announced last Friday it's cutting its Japan output by 20 per cent in April, 10 per cent in May and 5 per cent in June. BLOOMBERG