Panasonic Canada unit falls victim to Conti cybercriminals

Panasonic once again became a victim of a cyberattack. After the ransomware experience of Panasonic’s India operations in 2020 and the third party illegal access to its network in November 2021, the tech giant’s Canadian unit experienced another cyberattack.

According to a statement the Panasonic gave to Techcrunch, the “targeted cybersecurity attack” affected its processes, networks, and systems. Meanwhile, the VX-Underground said that the Conti ransomware gang was responsible for the act, who then claimed that it managed to steal over 2.8 gigabytes of data from the company. 

“We took immediate action to address the issue with assistance from cybersecurity experts and our service providers,” said Panasonic spokesperson Airi Minobe to Techcrunch. “This included identifying the scope of impact, containing the malware, cleaning and restoring servers, rebuilding applications, and communicating rapidly with affected customers and relevant authorities … Since confirming this attack, we have worked diligently to restore operations and understand the impact to customers, employees, and other stakeholders,” Minobe added. “Our top priority is continuing to work closely with affected parties to fully mitigate any impacts from this incident.”

Panasonic is still silent about the type of data accessed by the criminals, but it assured that only its Canada unit experienced the attack. It is also still unclear if the gang has already demanded a ransom.