Cyberattack Causes Leak of 115,000 Sets of Info from Asahi Group

Tokyo, Feb. 19 (Jiji Press)--A ransomware attack at Japanese food and beverage giant Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. last September led to the leak of 115,513 sets of personal data, the company has said.

Of the total, 110,396 involved the names and phone numbers of client companies’ executives and employees, and 5,117 the names and addresses of Asahi Group workers, including those who have quit, according to the firm’s announcement Wednesday.

Asahi Group said in November that 18 sets of information were confirmed to have leaked while 1,914,000 may have leaked.

On Wednesday, the company also unveiled detailed recurrence prevention measures, such as strengthening the functions to detect and block suspicious moves in computers and network facilities, setting up an internal organization for and appointing an executive in charge of information security, and enhancing employee education.

The cyberattack caused a system glitch, which forced Asahi Group to suspend production and shipments at most of its domestic plants and process orders manually.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]