Panasonic confirms data breach, says hackers accessed the company's internal network
The breach reportedly started on 22 June and ended on 3 November
Japanese consumer electronics firm Panasonic Corporation on Friday disclosed a major data breach that enabled an unidentified actor to gain access to the company's internal network.
In a press release [pdf], the Osaka-based firm said it detected the breach on 11 November, following which steps were taken to prevent external access to the company's network. Relevant authorities were also notified of the security incident, it added.
An internal investigation showed that during the intrusion, hackers were able to access some data on a file server.
The company is currently working with a specialist third-party organisation to investigate the security breach and to determine if it involved customers' personal data and/or other sensitive information.
While the company did not provide additional details of the breach, Japanese new outlets Mainichi and NHK claimed that hackers were able to gain access to sensitive information, such as customer details, employee personal information and Panasonic technical files from the company's domestic operations.
They further said that the breach started on 22 June and ended on 3 November, after Panasonic saw abnormal traffic on its network.
NHK reported that the servers attacked by cyber actors stored information about Panasonic business partners and the company's technology.
Panasonic told Mainichi that it cannot predict whether the incident will affect its business performance.
The company has apologised for any inconvenience caused to customers and others as a result of the security breach.
The Panasonic breach comes amid a series of cyber attacks targeting Japan's big tech firms in recent months.
In September, Tokyo-based Olympus suffered a security incident affecting its business units in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). While the company did not provide any information about the nature of the incident or the people who might be behind the attack, TechCrunch reported that the company had fallen victim to a ransomware attack from BlackMatter extortion group.
In November last year, an attack on Panasonic India also saw hackers leak 4GB of data related to the firm's business partners.
Also last year, Mitsubishi Electric Corp suffered a cyber attack that reportedly caused the leakage of information related to the company's business partners.
Earlier in 2018, an alleged China-linked threat group compromised the company's servers in a beach that was eventually detected in June 2019. The delay in the breach detection was attributed to the increased complexity of the investigation caused by the cyber actors deleting activity logs.