Glitch halts operations at all Toyota assembly plants in Japan
Baku, August 29, AZERTAC
Toyota halted operations at all 14 of its assembly plants in Japan on Tuesday due to a computer system failure, The Japan Times reports citing the world’s top automaker.
The decision immediately raised concerns that the halt could be due to a cyberattack, though a spokesman said that was unlikely and that an investigation was underway. In late February last year, production lines at the automaker ground to a halt after one of its suppliers of parts was hit by a cyberattack.
The computer malfunction Tuesday has meant the carmaker has not been able to order components, local media reported, citing a company spokesman.
It was not immediately clear when operations would restart, after the carmaker earlier in the day suspended work at 12 of its plants. It later said that operations at its Miyata plant in Fukuoka Prefecture and at group member Daihatsu Motor’s plant in Kyoto would additionally be halted.
Last year’s shutdown was due to a cyberattack targeting one of Toyota’s suppliers, Kojima Industries, and affected all 28 of Toyota's domestic production lines across 14 factories, impacting the output of about 13,000 vehicles.
Although Toyota has tentatively ruled out a cyberattack in Tuesday’s shutdown, a spate of harassing phone calls, which the Japanese government says have originated from China over Tokyo’s decision to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, has raised concerns among firms in Japan.
Last year, Japan saw a record number of 12,369 cybercrime cases uncovered by police, up by 160 from the previous year, according to the National Police Agency. Ransomware attacks alone jumped 58% in 2022 compared with the previous year.
While the size of business operations was apparently not a factor in the ransomware attacks — half of the victims were small and medium-size firms, the data showed — suppliers to large firms like Toyota are likely to be appetizing targets for hackers seeking payouts.
Toyota has been on a tear recently, announcing earlier this month that quarterly profit had beat estimates amid improving supplies of crucial semiconductors and the cheap yen. Operating profit for the April-June period hit a record \1.1 trillion ($7.7 billion) as demand has surged amid a strong recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed manufacturing.
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