Nissui says all 17 Nissui Logistics sites back to normal after cyberattack outage
In short
Nissui said on 20 October that shipping and receiving has returned to normal at all 17 sites of its logistics subsidiary Nissui Logistics (日水物流). The outage began on 7 October after an attack on a cloud service run by SoftBank subsidiary IDC Frontier, and at one point affected about 1,200 companies.
Read the full story 1 min read
Nissui said on 20 October that inbound and outbound operations had returned to normal at all 17 sites of its logistics subsidiary Nissui Logistics (日水物流). Asahi Shimbun described the outage as lasting about two weeks. [ 1 , 5 ]
The system failure began on 7 October, when shipping and receiving stopped at the subsidiary's temperature-controlled logistics sites. At one point about 1,200 companies were affected, including food makers and food wholesalers as well as Nissui's own frozen foods, according to Asahi. Kyodo News, in Tokyo Shimbun, also gave the figure of about 1,200 business partners. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
Asahi reported the cause as a cyberattack on a cloud service of IDC Frontier, a SoftBank subsidiary used by Nissui Logistics. Kyodo said IDC Frontier, based in Tokyo and a contractor, was hit by unauthorized access. TBS said a data-management contractor was the target of unauthorized access. Asahi said Nissui stated that the damaged servers held no personal information managed by the Nissui group. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
Nissui rebuilt the system and resumed some operations on 9 October. Kyodo reported that the company built the systems it needed anew on servers of a company other than IDC Frontier. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
Nissui said it would work to further strengthen information security and risk management, including at external contractors, and would also strengthen its setup for early recovery and business continuity in anticipation of system failures. [ 1 , 5 ]
Why it matters
The outage in cold-chain logistics reached about 1,200 food makers, wholesalers and other firms, according to the reports. Nissui said it will strengthen security and risk management, including at outside contractors, and its ability to recover quickly from system failures.
Key facts
- Nissui announced on 20 October that inbound and outbound operations at all 17 sites of subsidiary Nissui Logistics had returned to normal. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
- The system failure began on 7 October, halting shipping and receiving at the temperature-controlled logistics sites. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
- At one point about 1,200 companies were affected, including food makers and food wholesalers. [ 1 , 3 ]
- Partial operations resumed on 9 October after the system was rebuilt. [ 1 , 5 ]
- Nissui said the affected servers held no personal information managed by the Nissui group. [ 1 ]
- Recovery used servers of a company other than IDC Frontier to build the required systems anew, according to Kyodo News. [ 3 ]
Confirmed by several sources
- All 17 Nissui Logistics sites resumed normal inbound and outbound operations on 20 October, according to Nissui's announcement. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
- The trouble came from unauthorized access or a cyberattack affecting a contractor of Nissui Logistics, and halted shipping and receiving from 7 October. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]
- Partial resumption began on 9 October. [ 1 , 5 ]
- About 1,200 business partners were affected at one point. [ 1 , 3 ]
Still unclear
- How the attack is characterised. Asahi Shimbun calls it a cyberattack on IDC Frontier's cloud service, Tokyo Shimbun (Kyodo) calls it unauthorized access to IDC Frontier, and TBS refers only to unauthorized access at a data-management contractor.
- Whether any data was exposed. Only Asahi reports Nissui's statement that the damaged servers held no personal information managed by the Nissui group; the other documents do not address it.
What local media are saying
Timeline, local time
- Kyodo News article, carried by Tokyo Shimbun, on Nissui's announcement of full recovery (outage began 7 October; partial resumption 9 October). [ 3 ]
- Asahi Shimbun reports Nissui's announcement that all 17 sites are back to normal. [ 1 ]
- TBS NEWS DIG reports Nissui resumed operations at all sites. [ 5 ]