In a press release published on Friday, Japanese multinational conglomerate Panasonic disclosed a security breach after unknown threat actors gained access to servers on its network this month. In a statement released on Friday, the Japanese company said it was attacked on November 11 and determined that “some data on a file server had been accessed during the intrusion.”
News of this data breach comes less than a year after Panasonic India was hit with a ransomware attack that saw hackers leak 4 gigabytes of data, including financial information and email addresses. It also comes amid a wave of cyberattacks targeting Japanese technology companies. NEC and Mitsubishi Electric both fell victim to hackers last year, and Olympus was recently forced to suspend its European, Middle East, and Africa operations after being hit by BlackMatter ransomware.
Panasonic said in a statement:
“After detecting the unauthorized access, the company immediately reported the incident to the relevant authorities and implemented security countermeasures, including steps to prevent external access to the network. In addition to conducting its own investigation, Panasonic is currently working with a specialist third-party organization to investigate the leak and determine if the breach involved customers’ personal information and/or sensitive information related to social infrastructure.”
While no other information was provided in the statement, Japanese outlets Mainichi and NHK said the breach actually started on June 22 and ended on November 3. Panasonic did not respond to requests for comment but confirmed that date in an interview with TechCrunch and said the November 11 date actually refers to when the breach was first discovered.
NHK reported that the attacked servers stored information about Panasonic business partners and the company’s technology, noting a ransomware incident last November involving a subsidiary of the company that also leaked business information.
“We cannot predict whether it will affect our business or business performance, but we cannot deny the possibility of a serious incident,” the company told Mainichi on Friday, which according to The Record reported that the breach may have also involved employee information.
Panasonic signed a pact with McAfee in March to create a vehicle security operations center focused exclusively on cyberattacks.
