Tech company Panasonic confirmed that it suffered a data breach and hackers gained access to its internal network.
Panasonic said that its network was “illegally accessed by a third party” on Nov. 11 and that “some data on a file server had been accessed during the intrusion,” in a press release. However, Panasonic spokesperson Dannea DeLisser confirmed to media outlets that the breach actually began on June 22 and ended on Nov. 3, with the unauthorized access being first detected on Nov. 11.
Despite launching an internal investigation into the matter, Panasonic did not say how much data was compromised in the incident or whether any sensitive information was accessed.
The Osaka, Japan-based company has provided few other details on the breach. Along with its own investigation, the company said in its press release that it’s “currently working with a specialist third-party organization to investigate the leak and determine if the breach involved customers’ personal information and/or sensitive information related to social infrastructure.” Panasonic expects to learn the specific quantity and nature of the information that the hacker was able to access.
“After detecting the unauthorized access, the company immediately reported the incident to the relevant authorities and implemented security countermeasures, including steps to prevent external access to the network,” the company said in the press release. “Panasonic would like to express its sincerest apologies for any concern or inconvenience resulting from this incident.”
The data breach occurred less than a year after Panasonic India experienced a ransomware cyberattack, which saw hackers leak 4 GB of data, including financial information and customer email addresses.
Additionally, the ransomware attack was just one of the multiple cyberattacks that have targeted Japanese technology companies in the last year. NEC and Mitsubishi Electric were both breached in 2020, while Olympus was forced to suspend its European, Middle East, and Africa operations after being targeted by BlackMatter ransomware in September 2021.