Toyota Australia driven offline by cyber attack, as heart hospital hit by ransomware
Car maker Toyota admitted earlier today that it had suffered what appears to have been a malware attack at its facilities in Melbourne, Australia that knocked out its website and other communications.
The first public sign of a problem appeared on Toyota Australia’s website, which was offline for a period of time in the aftermath of the attack. The company’s phone and emails systems were also temporarily unavailable.
Toyota Australia is currently experiencing technical difficulties which are impacting our Guest Experience Centre, and our website toyota.com.au.
As a result, we are currently unreachable via phone or email.
We apologise for any inconvenience and thank customers for their patience during this time.
In a statement later published on the Toyota website and shared on its Facebook page, the car manufacturer confirmed that it had suffered a cyber attack:
“Toyota Australia can confirm that it has been the victim of an attempted cyber attack. At this stage, we believe no private employee or customer data has been accessed. The threat is being managed by our IT department. We are working closely with international cyber security experts to get systems up and running again as soon as possible. At this stage we have no further details about the origin of the attack. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank customers for their patience.”
A spokesperson told the media that the attack had impacted Toyota Australia’s operations worldwide but that its dealer network had remained operational.
Toyota reassured customers, employees and its business partners that it does not believe at this stage that any private information has been accessed. That would have certainly fit the bill if Toyota’s infrastructure had been hit by ransomware. However, at this stage, Toyota Australia has not confirmed whether it was ransomware that disrupted (Read more...)
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from The State of Security authored by Graham Cluley. Read the original post at: https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/featured/toyota-australia-cyber-attack-heart-hospital-ransomware/