TOKYO (AP) — Toyota is suspending production at all 28 lines of its 14 plants in Japan starting Tuesday, because of a “system malfunction” that a domestic supplier suspects is a cyberattack.
Kojima Industries Corp., based in Toyota city in central Japan, said Monday the problem could be a cyberattack as an error was detected in its computer server system.
As a result, the company said its system could not communicate properly with Toyota or monitor production, although there was nothing physically wrong with the production equipment.
Kojima spokesman Tomohiro Takayama said the company was investigating and working to fix the problem.
“This has never happened before,” Takayama said. “We are not sure yet if it is a cyberattack, but we suspect it might be one.”
Kojima supplies Toyota with many parts including air-conditioning, steering wheel components and other parts for vehicles’ interiors and exteriors.
Do they know if any of the autos were hacked?
No, this was an incident within their manufacturing plants in Japan. As of today everything is back up and running.