Report on Supply Chain Compliance 3, no. 13 (June 25, 2020):

A cyberattack brought Honda Motor Company Ltd.’s manufacturing, financial services and customer services operations to a standstill, the company announced via Twitter.^[1] The cyberattack was most likely what is known as a ransomware attack, which involves the use of file-encrypting malware that scrambles files and holds them hostage until the victim pays a ransom.

Ransomware attacks are increasingly more common, and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an uptick in attacks as hackers use pandemic-related language to get employees to click on links or download malware onto their systems.^[2] Cybersecurity experts^[3] traced the virus and determined that the ransomware called Ekans was the tool used for the attack.

The attack may have been an extension of data breaches^[4] that released information on Honda employees and their machines onto the web, giving hackers a list of possible targets as well as machines that may be more vulnerable to malware attacks.

1 Honda Automobile Customer Service (@HondaCustSvc), “At this time Honda Customer Service and Honda Financial Services are experiencing technical difficulties and are unavailable. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding,” Twitter, June 8, 2020, https://bit.ly/3db4DB5.
2 Thomas Brewster, “Coronavirus Scam Alert: Watch Out For These Risky COVID-19 Websites And Emails,” Forbes, March 12, 2020, https://bit.ly/37H9Z5E.
3 Courtney Linder, “Honda Shuts Down Factories After Cyberattack,” Popular Mechanics, June 11, 2020, https://bit.ly/2AEdePv.
4 Ionut Ilascu, “Honda investigates possible ransomware attack, networks impacted,” Bleeping Computer, June 8, 2020, https://bit.ly/2UTKUzp.

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