Toyota halts vehicle production in Japan due to cyber attack

Car maker Toyota had to stop production of its vehicles in Japan due to the hacker attack. The Japanese government is reportedly involved in the investigation of the incident.

The Japanese company Toyota was the victim of a massive cyber attack. On the official site, the world’s largest automaker announced that vehicle production has been halted at 14 of 16 manufacturing plants in Japan.

System failure at the domestic supplier has been cited as the reason. Kojima Industries Corporation, the component supplier that was the target of the attack, supplies key components to Toyota for the manufacture of air conditioners and steering wheels.

A spokesperson for the company confirmed to Asian news portal Nikkei that the system failure was a hacker attack:

“It is true that we were hit by a cyberattack. We are currently reviewing the damages and working to resolve the issue. Our top priority right now is to get Toyota back into production as soon as possible. Have to start over.”

Production processes cannot be monitored

According to official information, the components were not damaged by the system failure, but Kojima Industries was no longer able to monitor production processes. Communication with Toyota was also interrupted.

The carmaker relies on so-called lean production. This means that components are only manufactured by suppliers when they can be installed directly into the vehicle.

This approach saves manufacturers expensive storage costs, but they are more affected by production downtime as the entire vehicle production has to be halted.

other partner affected

Two other Toyota partners were also affected by the attack – truck maker Hino Motors and Daihatsu Motors, reports US magazine Engadget.

It is not known exactly what kind of cyber attack this is, what malware or hacking methods were used or what were the motives behind the attack. The Japanese government has reportedly joined an investigation into the incident.

The attack did not cause long-term loss of production. on official site Toyota has already confirmed that it intends to resume production as usual from March 2.