A suspected ransomware attack is said to have affected the functioning of Honda company branches across Europe, Japan, and the United States forcing the authorities to shut the digital operations for the entire week.
Reports are in that hackers have targeted the Honda servers with a file encryption malware variant dubbed Ekans forcing the company authorities to send the production unit workers to home as the installed automated devices became non-operational.
Although Honda never admitted that its servers were disrupted due to a cyberattack, it did agree that it’s IT infrastructure was down due to reasons.
“On Sunday, June 7th, 2020, Honda experienced a disruption in a computer network which affected the operations across Europe and Japan. And we are currently investigating and assessing the situation” said a spokesperson in a statement released on June 8th, 2020.
Note 1- Ekans Ransomware is a malware variant that infects industrial control systems to disrupt factory operations until a ransom is paid. Security analysts say that Ekans is a spin-off of Snake Ransomware and has so far infected factories related to the automobile and electronics sector.
Note 2- Honda is in no mood to bow down to the demands of hackers and might bring back the operations to normalcy through data backups.
Note 3- In May 2017, Honda’s automobile factories such as the Sayama Car Manufacturing plant were hit by the WannaCry Ransomware variant halting the production of Accord and Odyssey Minivan’s to a certain extent.
Note 4- Since 1959, Honda Motor Company is into the manufacturing of automotives such as motorbikes, motorboats, cars, and other power equipment. It is one of the renowned companies in America after Toyota as its cars are widely purchased all across North America and the UK.
