Japanese automotive systems giant JTEKT says cyber attack impacted global operations

Leading Japanese automotive systems manufacturer JTEKT said that a significant cyber attack affected its operations in the U.S., South America and some European countries.

 

JTEKT is a global leader in manufacturing and selling automotive systems. Its clients include automakers like BMW, Tesla, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan and Rivian.

 

In a data security incident notice posted on its website, JTEKT said that on October 10, that its U.S. operations were disrupted by a cyber security incident. The company immediately launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident, disconnected the affected devices from the network and reported the incident to local authorities.

 

“We have confirmed that unauthorised access by a third party to the network of our U.S. group company may have led to the leakage of customer information stored on the server. We are currently conducting a detailed investigation with the support of external specialist agencies,” JTEKT said in a separate update.

 

The company said in a recent update that the incident has affected parts of its global operations. In North America, the unauthorised access was identified in the system of automobile and bearing production base in the U.S. and product supply was switched to manual response.

 

In South America, unauthorised access was confirmed in systems at bases in Brazil and Argentina with product supply operation moved to manual response.

 

“At bases in the Czech Republic and Germany, connections were cut off due to concerns about the impact of unauthorized access from North America. Production systems have been restarted and are in production. No unauthorised access has been confirmed at other bases in Europe,” the company added.

 

Recently, the BlackSuit ransomware group claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on JTEKT and listed the company as a victim on its data leak site. The group claims to be in possession of 893.63GB of data stolen from the company, including data from companies like BMW, Caterpillar, Rivian, Tesla and more.