Asahi Group Holdings has confirmed that a ransomware attack has disrupted its systems in Japan, affecting order placement, product shipments and customer service operations.
The Tokyo-headquartered company said it detected the incident on Monday (29 September) and has established an ‘Emergency Response Headquarters’ to investigate. According to the Asahi Super Dry brand owner, affected servers were immediately isolated to minimise impact, and external cybersecurity experts have been engaged to assist recovery efforts.
“As a result of the containment measures, operations across our domestic group companies – including order placement and product shipment – have been affected. Additionally, we are currently unable to receive email communications from external sources,” the company stated.
Asahi added that traces of a possible unauthorised transfer of data have been identified, although the nature and scope of any compromised information remain under investigation.
To maintain supply, the group has begun limited manual order processing and partial shipments. Customer service desks and call centres are also expected to begin reopening gradually from Monday.
“I would like to sincerely apologise for any difficulties caused to our stakeholders by the recent system disruption,” said group CEO Atsushi Katsuki. “We are making every effort to restore the system as quickly as possible, while implementing alternative measures to ensure continued product supply.”
Also in Japan, Suntory Holdings announced the resignation of CEO Takeshi Niinami last month following a police investigation into “supplements” that he was alleged to have purchased.
