Following a major components supplier’s computer systems being taken down as a result of a cyberattack, Toyota Motor Corp.’s Japanese plants paused production on Tuesday. This is the latest setback to the automaker’s attempts to make up for missed production earlier this year.
The top auto manufacturer in the world is ceasing production at all 14 of its domestic factories, which will reduce output by around 5% for the month. The halt is related to Kojima Press Industry Co., which acknowledged on Tuesday that its server had likely been the target of a weekend ransomware attack. Tuesday morning trading saw a little than 1% increase in Toyota stock.
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Toyota: Was there a hack?
TOKYO
The largest automaker in the world, Toyota, announced on Tuesday that it would resume domestic production in Japan after being forced to halt it due to a cyberattack on a significant supplier.
Following a malfunction with the company’s ordering systems, Kojima Industries, a producer of automobile components, was forced to halt production. The issue first surfaced Saturday night, and the business chose to shut down its computer network to stop it from affecting consumers, according to a company spokesman.
Government representatives revealed Kojima Industries had been the target of a cyberattack on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon, the company’s website was still unavailable.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno stated that the government was looking into the origin of the attack during a regular news conference on Tuesday. He also cautioned businesses to strengthen their cybersecurity in view of the developing turmoil in Ukraine.
He continued, “There is a possibility that the harm from the assaults might have a broad impact not just on the supply chains of firms themselves, but also on their customers. The risk of cyberattacks is rising.
In recent years, cyberattacks have become more frequent in Japan. Japanese businesses have been slow to update their networks to take into consideration criminals’ increasing use of ransomware and state actor incursions. The attacks, which may essentially hold computer systems and valuable data hostage, have most frequently targeted manufacturers.
After the pandemic wrecked havoc on global supply lines and resulted in shortages of semiconductors and other components, Toyota had to drastically reduce output, as had many other automakers.
Toyota made an upbeat announcement last year that it intended to produce 9.3 million vehicles worldwide by March 31the conclusion of its fiscal yearafter the initial waves of the virus had subsided and the demand for cars had soared globally.
However, the business was forced to scale back those plans, first to nine million, and then, in February, to eight and a half million as a result of soaring semiconductor demand and persistent infection waves.
Toyota had already planned temporary shutdowns in March at a number of factories in Japan due to a lack of parts before the issues at Kojima Industries.
The production of 13,000 vehicles was halted as a result of the announcement made on Monday, according to a Toyota spokeswoman. The business announced in a statement that production would resume on Wednesday.
Despite the losses, Toyota has been able to use the knowledge gained from the earthquake and tsunami that wreaked havoc on northeastern Japan in 2011 to adapt to the pandemic’s disruptions better than its rivals, leading the world in auto sales for two years in a row.
Heavy truck and bus manufacturer Hino, a Toyota affiliate, announced in a statement on Monday that it would also halt operations at two plants due to issues with an unnamed supplier. Local media sources claim that another subsidiary, Daihatsu, has stopped some of its output.
Toyota was hacked when?
According to Reuters, the biggest carmaker in the world is stopping production at one-third of its facilities. After one of its suppliers was hacked, Toyota says it will temporarily suspend producing automobiles in its Japanese factory.
The supplier in question is known as Kojima Industries, and it creates composite and plastic components for Toyota’s hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles as well as interior automobile parts. According to Reuters, a Toyota representative referred to the incident as a “supplier system failure.”
Toyota will consequently shut down 28 production lines at 14 sites throughout Japan starting on March 1.
Hackers are increasingly targeting Toyota. At least three breaches of the automaker’s security occurred in 2019: a malware attack in Australia, a breach of 3.1 million customers’ data in Japan (and perhaps Thailand and Vietnam), and a $37 million-costing swindle.
Toyota experienced another breach in 2021, this time through a US-based parts business, in what is thought to have been a Russian-related incident.
However, Toyota is not the only carmaker that has had to suspend operations as a result of a security breach. Honda had to suspend building vehicles at facilities in Ohio and Turkey, as well as motorbikes in India and South America, according to a study we published in 2020.
A limited amount of further information, including any probable suspects, is available concerning today’s cyberattack. Fumio Kishida, the prime minister of Japan, did assert that his country would look into any potential ties to Russia.
Toyota is it closing down?
The earthquake that occurred on March 16 in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture also affected a dealership there.
TOKYO
Due to supply chain disruptions brought on by a significant earthquake that shook Japan this week, Toyota Motor Corp. will cease operations at more than half of its locations there and is researching potential production disruptions abroad.
Out of a total of 28 lines in 14 plants run nationwide, Toyota will suspend production for three days starting next week on 18 lines at 11 factories in Japan, the manufacturer announced on Friday.
Toyota estimated that the production shutdowns caused by the earthquake will cost it roughly 20,000 automobiles.
In addition to the already disclosed slowdowns brought on by a cyberattack and a shortage of microchips, Toyota’s Japan operations will produce 50,000 fewer units than originally anticipated in March.
The most recent suspensions will decrease the output of Toyota-branded vehicles, such as the Crown and Yaris sedans, the RAV4, Harrier, and C-HR crossovers, and the Land Cruiser SUV.
The Lexus LS and IC sedans, RC and LC coupes, and NX SUV will also be impacted.
Toyota refused to say specifically which parts supplies were impacted by the earthquake.
Toyota shut down just one day after reducing production from April to June due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a global semiconductor scarcity, and increased supply chain insecurity.
Toyota reduced its April global output by 17% to 750,000 vehicles. The earthquake and the war in Ukraine were not taken into account in that forecast as potential disruptions.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake, which occurred on Wednesday just after 11:30 p.m. local time, was located in the same area as the 2011 earthquake-tsunami tragedy that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It was centered off the Pacific coast from the northeastern city of Sendai.
The most recent earthquake resulted in a tsunami, blackouts as far away as Tokyo, the derailment of the nation’s renowned bullet train, and buckling of highways that act as vital supply routes.
Japanese national broadcaster NHK stated that three people died and 190 were injured as a result of the earthquake.
On Friday, vendors close to the epicenter were gradually restarting their activities.
Renesas Electronics Corp., a crucial semiconductor manufacturer, announced that two of its three facilities close to the epicenter have resumed partial test-run production. On March 23, those facilitiesits Naka and Takasaki factoriesshould resume operating at their pre-earthquake levels.
Renesas’ Yonezawa factory, the third damaged unit, began all production operations on March 18 and anticipates reaching normal operational levels by March 20.
When the earthquake hit, all three plantswhich produce semiconductors for the automobile industryautomatically shut down. Any extended downtime at Renesas might have severely harmed the global automobile industry, which is currently in crisis mode due to the global semiconductor scarcity.
When its Naka factory was shut down for months due to the 2011 earthquake, Renesas was revealed as a weak link.
Additionally, the Naka plant was down for several days in February 2021 after being rocked by another earthquake.
Separately, Denso Corp., a supplier to Toyota, reported that some of its factories were damaged and are currently being examined. Slowly, more facilities are starting to operate again.
A Denso representative said the business was unable to provide a timeframe for the return of full production.
As teams examine the damage to the sites, Hitachi Astemo, the Honda-affiliated supplier, has ceased operations at five factories in the disaster area.
Some factories were damaged, according to a Hitachi Astemo spokeswoman, but the company doesn’t expect significant disruptions.
The company is keeping an eye on the components it purchases from lower-tier vendors and plans to resume its factories gradually starting perhaps next week.
Can someone take control of my car using a hack?
Remote hacking into an unconnected car is not possible. However, if you don’t drive the most recent Tautology Motors vehicle, your car is probably vulnerable to some type of digital infiltration. In fact, if a car can connect, it can be partially or completely hacked today.
What took place at the Toyota factory?
Due to a “system malfunction” at one of its local suppliers, Toyota was forced to halt manufacturing in Japan on Tuesday.
Toyota, one of the biggest automakers in the world, was forced to halt operations at 14 of its Japanese plants on Tuesday local time due to the alleged attack, which had an impact on the manufacturing of around 13,000 automobiles.
In a statement, a Toyota representative stated, “We apologize to our customers and suppliers for any trouble this may create. “We will make every effort to deliver automobiles to our customers as quickly as possible,” says the company. “We will continue to work with our suppliers to strengthen the supply chain.”
The purported cyberattack’s originator is unknown, but according to Reuters, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated his country would look into possible Russian involvement.
According to the publication, he stated, “It is difficult to say whether this has anything to do with Russia before making full examinations.”
On the same day, further sanctions against Belarus were put in place and Japan joined Western nations in banning dealings with the Russian national bank.
Early this month, protesters’ obstruction of a bridge spanning the U.S.-Canada border caused deliveries of auto parts to be delayed, forcing Toyota and other automakers to halt production in North America.
Is Toyota currently producing again?
In its March 2023 fiscal year, which ends, Toyota expects to produce 9.7 million automobiles. After producing 8.2 million in fiscal 2021, it produced roughly 8.6 million automobiles in fiscal 2022. To lower car prices, production must be increased more quickly.
What kind of recent cyberattacks are they?
Sixt, a car rental company, acknowledged on May 1 2022 that it had been the target of a cyberattack and had discovered IT abnormalities on April 29. Numerous consumer services were shut down as a result of the hack, which left many Sixt customers unhappy.
Although the reason or nature of the attack was not made public, Andy Jenkinson, group CEO of CIP, claimed that the corporation has exposed and vulnerable Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities. Read the entire account here.
The Toyota logo is what?
Qualities like quality, technological innovation, and dependability spring to mind when consumers think about the Toyota brand. Toyota has a long and rich history of building dependable automobiles for many generations. The iconic insignia on Toyota vehicles holds a profound meaning on numerous levels, as befits a motor firm with such a lengthy history.
Origin of the Toyota Logo
The current Toyota emblem has its roots in 1989, when it was first used to mark the company’s 50th anniversary. Three ovals are integrated in this unusual logo in a horizontal symmetrical pattern. The two parallel ovals inside the larger oval stand for the company’s and the customer’s hearts, respectively. They are positioned so that they overlap to signify a partnership and mutual trust.
What is ransomware on computers?
Malware called ransomware is made to prevent a user or business from accessing files on a computer. Cyberattackers put businesses in a situation where paying the ransom is the quickest and least expensive option to recover access to their files by encrypting these files and requesting a ransom payment for the decryption key. Some variants have incorporated further features, such the ability to steal data, to entice victims of ransomware even more to pay the demanded ransom.
The most apparent and prominent form of malware is now ransomware. Recent ransomware attacks have seriously hurt a number of enterprises, paralyzed public services in cities, and affected hospitals’ capacity to deliver essential services.
Is Toyota having problems?
TOKYOToyota will reduce its global output by around 40% in September as it begins to feel the effects of the pandemic and the global scarcity of automotive microchips. Up until this point, the company has mostly avoided the supply chain problems that have affected competitors globally.
Toyota announced the loss on Thursday and attributed the suspensions to shortages in global chip supplies and the Southeast Asian COVID-19 Delta variant epidemic.
The lengthy shutdowns, which start in August and last until the end of September, would significantly reduce Toyota output in almost all of the world’s key markets, including China, Europe, the United States, Japan, and Asia.
The largest carmaker in Japan anticipates a loss of 360,000 global automobiles in just September. About 80,000 units will be lost from operations in North America, 40,000 from operations in Europe, 80,000 from operations in China, and 8,000 from activities in other Asian countries.
The reductions will impact 27 of the 28 production lines here as well as 14 Toyota assembly factories in Japan. In addition to the additional 20,000 units lost due to dial backs in August, Toyota stated that it anticipates losing around 140,000 units of production from home market factories in September.
Japanese factories Takaoka and Tsutsumi, which together produce the RAV4 and Harrier crossovers, Corolla and Camry sedans, as well as the Prius hybrid, among other nameplates, are among those that are affected. The Tahara facility, which produces the Lexus LS, IS, RC, RCF, and NX models, was also damaged.
The reduction amounts to around 40% of Toyota’s initial projected global output for September.
Toyota stated that, despite the global suspensions, it was still maintaining its production target to produce 9.3 million vehicles globally in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. Only Toyota and Lexus are included in that sum; Daihatsu and Hino are not.
“Risk considerations have been taken into account in our annual strategy. But as for September, Chief Communications Officer Jun Nagata said the effects hit earlier and more severely than anticipated.
Kazunari Kumakura, global procurement manager, stated that there are ongoing threats to the supply chain but he would not speculate on when the situation would improve. He also neglected to specify which suppliers were impacted or what categories of components were particularly scarce.
“We believe there are concerns in October and beyond, therefore we will continue to watch the situation every day. We would like to recover as much as possible in October and beyond, but we already have strict production plans,” Kumakura said, adding that Toyota still intends to reach 9.3 million.
In September, Toyota planned to produce about 900,000 automobiles globally. The revised plan represents a significant decrease from both that target and the 973,000 automobiles Toyota produced in September 2020, just as the company was starting to recover from the pandemic shutdowns in the first half of the previous year. Before COVID-19 struck in September 2019, Toyota produced 905,000 automobiles globally.
The epidemic affects Toyota operations worldwide that depend on those parts since it is impacting supplier operations in Southeast Asia. The impact highlights how vulnerable and intricately integrated the current global car industry is.
Nissan, a Japanese rival, announced earlier this month that it would shut down its sizable Smyrna, Tennessee plant for two weeks due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at a Malaysian semiconductor supply company.
Toyota refused to disclose the supplier or the components that caused its most recent suspensions.
According to AutoForecast Solutions, the chip shortfall has caused a global loss of 5.8 million vehicles from manufacturing schedules. According to AFS, the death toll may eventually reach 7.1 million.
By increasing production and posting record profits despite the pandemic-microchip double whammy, Toyota has largely baffled the industry. The Japanese behemoth’s fiscal first quarter, which concluded on June 30, saw records set for net income, revenue, and global retail sales in addition to an all-time-high quarterly operating profit.
Toyota has previously given credit to its excellent supply chain management, which was characterized by larger stockpiles of essential components, greater insight into the operations of lower-tier component manufacturers, and more strategic long-term planning.
However, even Toyota has experienced some issues. Toyota shut down various lines at four facilities in Japan for a few days in the beginning of August as a forewarning of impending difficulty. It blamed a parts shortage brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak in Southeast Asia, where factories were shut down owing to pandemic shutdowns. The Land Cruiser, Corolla, Alphard, and Voxy vans were among the Lexus models and other nameplates whose production was impacted by those suspensions.
Additionally, Toyota shut down production at all three of its Brazilian factories the day before this week’s announcement due to supply chain problems from Southeast Asia brought on by the epidemic.
One of Toyota’s three assembly facilities in Thailand has been shut down since July 21.
Toyota’s global production increased by 35% to 5.30 million vehicles in the first six months of 2020 through June, while its global sales increased by 31% to 5.47 million vehicles. Even a reduction of more than 300,000 units in September would still only account for a small portion of Toyota’s annual production volume, which rose to 9.21 million cars in 2020.
The production peak for Toyota, which also includes Daihatsu and Hino, was 10.73 million vehicles in 2019. Toyota doesn’t release production projections for the entire year.
However, it announced last month that it will aim to produce 9.3 million cars between now and March 31, 2022. But since Hino and Daihatsu are not included in that total, a direct comparison cannot be made.