Toyota to resume production in Japan after brake caused by cyberattack on a supplier

© Archyde.com/SOE ZEYA TUN
File photo of the Toyota logo

Por Satoshi Sugiyama, Maki Shiraki y Tim Kelly

TOKYO, March 1 (Archyde.com) – Toyota Motor Corp will resume local production from Wednesday following a cyberattack on a supplier paralyzed its factories for a day, sparking concern regarding the vulnerability of Japan’s supply chains.

There is no information available regarding who is behind the attack, nor the motive. The episode came just following Japan joined its Western allies in clamping down on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, although it was not known if the incident was related.

Cybersecurity has emerged as a key area of ​​concern in Japan, where government critics say responses to hacking threats have been hampered by a fractured approach, with an attack on one vendor sufficient to bring one of the the world’s most powerful manufacturers to curb their production locally.

Toyota’s production lines will restart at its 14 factories across the country on Wednesday, the company said in a statement. Tuesday’s suspension affected the production of some 13,000 vehicles.

Kojima Industries Corp, which supplies plastic parts and electronic components to the automaker, said it had discovered a bug on one of its file servers on Saturday night. After restarting the server, he confirmed that he had been infected with a virus, and found a threatening message, he added.

The message was written in English, a Kojima spokesman told Archyde.com, but declined to elaborate.

A system glitch made it difficult to communicate with Toyota regarding parts orders and led to a production halt at the automaker, Kojima said.

Government ministers said they were closely monitoring the incident.

While large companies have cybersecurity measures in place, authorities are concerned regarding small and medium-sized subcontractors, Industry Minister Koichi Hagiuda said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama, Tim Kelly, and Maki Shiraki; Additional reporting by Rocky Swift; Editing in Spanish by Javier Leira)