Top Toyota supplier Denso hit by suspected ransom-linked cyberattack, NHK says

Denso Corp., a top Toyota Motor Corp. supplier, was targeted by a group of hackers threatening to disclose its industrial secrets unless the Japanese maker of electronic auto parts paid ransom money, NHK reported Sunday.

A representative for Denso said that there was an unauthorized access to its network in Germany, NHK reported.

If confirmed, the incident would mark the second recent cyberattack against a Toyota supplier. The world’s top carmaker idled all of its factories in Japan two weeks ago after parts supplier Kojima Press Industry Co. 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.

“We are hearing from Denso that there’s no impact on business operations,” said Hideaki Homma, a spokesman for Toyota.

Pandora, the group that allegedly accessed Denso’s systems, threatened to disclose the supplier’s trade secrets including email, invoices and part diagrams on a website on the dark web, NHK reported, citing Japanese cyber security firm Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions Inc.

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.

Toyota’s production fell 15% in January as the company halted output in the Chinese city of Tianjin when the government carried out multiple rounds of mass testing for COVID-19 on residents. In February, some of Toyota’s North American operations were affected by protests that shut some of the main trade routes between the U.S. and Canada.

Cyberattacks have risen in Japan in recent years. Authorities identified 12,275 cybercrime cases in the country last year, a record high, according to the National Police Agency. Japan’s manufacturing industry is the largest target for crimes such as ransomware attacks.