Toyota forced to halt car production following supplier cyberattack

Toyota has been forced to shut production at its Japanese factories following a suspected cyberattack.

The Japanese car giant has revealed that Kojima Industries Corporation, one of its central suppliers, had been affected by an attack that meant it had to shutter activity across its entire production line.

“Due to a system failure at a domestic supplier, we have decided to suspend the operation of 28 lines at 14 plants in Japan on Tuesday, March 1st (both 1st and 2nd shifts),” the company said in a statement. “We apologize to our relevant suppliers and customers for any inconvenience this may cause.”

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“We will also continue to work with our suppliers in strengthening the supply chain and make every effort to deliver vehicles to our customers as soon as possible.”

Toyota closure

Kojima Industries is a manufacturer of plastic parts for cars, making it an integral part of the Toyota production line. Its website is currently offline, but the company hasn’t made any official statement about an attack yet.

Toyota expects that this halt to production will cost it around a 5% drop in output in Japan, which is around 13,000 units.

The company has set a production goal of 8.5 million vehicles for 2022, with Japanese factories accounting for around a third of Toyota’s entire production.

Toyota’s subsidiaries Daihatsu Motors and Hino Motors will also halt production, BleepingComputer noted, although the exact impact on these entities is still unknown.

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It’s not thought that the attack is linked to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, with retaliation to sanctions recently imposed on Russia by the Japanese government a possible motive for hackers.

Large organizations such as Toyota have proved popular targets for ambitious cybercriminals in the past, with the likes of Meyer, Mizuno and even the San Francisco 49ers NFL team all suffering attacks in recent weeks.

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Via BleepingComputer