Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric targeted in cyberattack blamed on Chinese hackers
- Mitsubishi Electric, a major defence and electronics firm in Japan, said no sensitive information had been compromised
- The cyberattack means Japanese companies are likely to redouble efforts to protect their private data
In a statement on Monday morning, the Tokyo-based firm said internal checks identified irregular activity on a device in Japan on June 28 last year. An internal investigation subsequently found that hackers had been able to gain access to the management section at the company’s headquarters and at a number of branch offices, targeting employees’ personal computers and company servers.
The company immediately restricted external access to its facilities, while the investigation “confirmed that no technical information or important information related to our business partners has been leaked”.
Kyodo reported that email exchanges with the Defence Ministry and Nuclear Regulation Authority and documents relating to projects with private firms could potentially have been compromised.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government had been notified, and that the targeted information related to job applicants and employees of the company, as well as its sales and technologies.