Honda Halts Operations at 11 Global Plants Including US, India, and Turkey Due to Cyberattack

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Japanese automobile manufacturer Honda recently suffered a cyberattack, causing the shutdown of 11 factories worldwide, including in the United States and Turkey, Asahi Shimbun reported on the 10th.

According to the report, on the morning of the 8th, Honda's internal network system experienced a large-scale failure due to a cyberattack, halting production at 11 factories. As a result, in the general automobile sector, 9 factories including 5 in the United States and 1 in Turkey stopped production, while in the motorcycle sector, factories in India and Brazil each ceased production.

Honda stated that the system failure occurred around 9 a.m. on the 8th, and investigations concluded that a virus infiltrated from outside had spread to the company's servers. System recovery is expected to be completed by the 10th. Production resumed on the 9th at 7 factories including those in the United States, but the restart timing for the remaining 4 factories remains unclear, Asahi reported.

Honda said it is difficult to disclose who carried out the attack or the details of the unauthorized access for security reasons. Honda sent notices to employees through various channels instructing them "not to log in (to the internal system via PC)."

This is not the first time Honda has been targeted by a cyberattack. In June 2017, a system controlling the automobile production line was attacked, temporarily halting operations at the Sayama City factory in Saitama Prefecture. At that time, the system was infected with ransomware that blocked access to critical files and demanded money.

Asahi reported that cyberattacks targeting major Japanese companies have been increasing recently. Mitsubishi Electric was found in January to have been repeatedly subjected to large-scale cyberattacks by multiple Chinese hacker groups. The leaked internal information reportedly included highly confidential defense-related data.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.