Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, announced that it will suspend production at 14 factories in Japan on Tuesday, March 1 due to a “systemic failure” in a supplier company that is suspected of being the victim of a cyberattack.
The affected company a news agency report APis Kojima Industries Corp., which supplies Toyota with parts such as air conditioners, steering wheel parts and other supplies, and which reported it has a bug that prevents it from communicating with Toyota systems used to monitor production.
Because the systems are not physically flawed, Kojima Industries Corp. suspects a cyberattack.
“This situation had not happened to us before; We are not sure if it is a cyber attack, but we suspect it,” said Tomohiro Takayama, a spokesman for Kojima Industries Corpo.
After announcing the temporary suspension in its production, Toyota apologized to its customers. The company has several orders for paid cars that have not yet been supplied to customers.
At the closing of the edition of this note, Toyota shares showed a slight decrease of around 0.35 percent in value.
While these are separate, unrelated events, stocks in several cybersecurity companies have surged in recent days amid fears that Russia could target Western companies with cyberattacks. The increase in the value of the shares of these companies shows the relevance of security, and how cyberattacks can affect companies from all kinds of sectors.
Toyota and other companies in the auto industry have suffered production problems due to shortages of semiconductors, which affect the sector in the manufacture of computers for cars and other vehicle parts.
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