Hackers gain access to Panasonic server for a long time

Hackers have long had undiscovered access to a server of the Japanese tech group Panasonic. This was discovered by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK. In concrete terms, this involved an attack by hackers on a server in which a lot of confidential information was stolen.

According to the Japanese public broadcaster, hackers gained unauthorized access to the server of the Japanese tech group. This server contained confidential information about Panasonic technology, information about partners and personal data of employees. The Japanese broadcaster notes that the data breach already occurred in June 2021. As of June 22, unauthorized access to the server has been sought up to three times.

Disclosure and Response

Only last week, Panasonic made the data breach public and indicated that it had discovered the data breach on November 11. The tech group discovered the data breach through internal network monitoring. According to the experts, this means there’s more to it than just a compromised server.

An investigation has now been launched, a specialist has been hired to investigate the hacking attack and the data breach, and regulators have been notified.

Data breach in 2020

Pansonic has been more alert to data breaches since its India facility was hit by data theft and extortion last year. In October 2020, the group had to pay a whopping 440,000 euros ($500,000) ransom to hackers for preventing stolen data from being made public. The tech group did not pay, after which 4 GB of confidential data was made public in November 2020. This data includes account balances with suppliers, bank account numbers, accounting spreadsheets, lists of passwords for sensitive software systems and email addresses.