Toyota closes 14 factories in Japan after cyberattack

The Toyota logo.

(Illustration) © AP/Altaf Qadri

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Toyota was forced to halt production at its 14 factories in Japan on Monday following a cyberattack that caused a system failure at a local supplier.

Advertising

Read more

With our correspondent in Tokyo,

production

will resume in Japan on Wednesday using a temporary computer system.

But it will still take one to two weeks for the firm to completely resolve the problem.

On Monday alone, the

affected the production of 13,000 vehicles.

The cyberattack was discovered on Monday when one of its suppliers, Kojima Industries, noticed an error on one of its file servers.

The plastic component maker confirmed, after restarting it, that its server was infected with a virus.

He claims to have found a message in English containing threats.

Russian counterattack?

Kojima does not provide any details on the author and the reason for this attack.

He immediately disconnected his network of external clients and servers and notified the police.

This incident reveals one of the weaknesses of Japanese industry: if these large companies have implemented cyber security measures, this is less the case for their subcontractors.

This incident comes after Japan decided to join the

after its invasion of Ukraine.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government has announced that they will check whether the two events are linked.

Earlier, Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin hinted that his country would respond to Japanese sanctions with retaliatory measures.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Industry

• Cybercriminality

• Russia

• Japan