Japanese automaker Toyota today announced its second violation of its data. This is the company’s second cyber-security accident in the last five weeks.
During the first incident in its Australian subsidiary, the breach was today announced by the main offices of the company in Japan.
Toyota and Lexus Car Owners Data At Risk
Hackers have violated their IT systems and accessed data from multiple sales subsidiaries. The list includes the Toyota Tokyo Sales Holdings, Lexus Koishikawa Sales, Jamil Shoji (Lexus Nerima), the Toyota Tokyo Corolla, Toyota Tokyo Toyota Toyota, the Lexus Tokyo Corolla and the Net Toyota West Corolla. Toyota said that the servers that hackers have accessed have saved up to 3.1 million customers sales information.
The car maker said an ongoing investigation is underway to determine whether hackers have ex-filtrated any data they have access to. Financial customer details have not been saved on hacked servers, Toyota said.
However, the company did not say what kind of information hackers might have accessed. “We apologize for the great concern to anyone who used Toyota and Lexus vehicles,” one Toyota spokesman told the press today. “We take this situation seriously and will implement information security measures thoroughly for dealers and the Toyota Group as a whole.”
This is the company’s second cybersecurity this year, after a similar incident was reported by the end of February but affecting its Australian branch. The attack on his Australian office was of a more disruptive nature, which has reduced the ability of Toyota Australia to handle sales and deliver new cars.
Vietnamese cyber espionage trackers:
Check the 🆕 @riskybusiness podcast 🎙️ episode (534). A chat with a Toyota Australia dealership employee leads to a reexamination of the impacts & motives of their recent breach.I agree that #APT32 🇻🇳 is targeting auto industry…
— Nick Carr (@ItsReallyNick) 14 March 2019
Some industry experts attributed Toyota to APT32 (OceanLotus), a Vietnamese cyberspy unit which focuses on the automotive industry. Experts suggested that Toyota’s Australia branch was targeted by APT32 hackers as a way of getting into Japan’s more secure central network.
At the time, Toyota refused to confirm any of these theories and assign the attack to the hackers of APT32. However, after the attack on its Australian branch, the company said it would start an internal audit of its IT systems, and the today publication only burns fuel to the APT32 theories.
