February 28 Toyota announced it would suspend production on Tuesday following a hacker attack immediately from a supplier. The company therefore lost the production of 13 thousand vehicles for an attack on the supply chain. Nozomi Networks takes stock of the situation.
Toyota, hacker attack: the point of Nozomi Networks
Rich Armor Of Nozomi Networks knows the automotive sector well, having previously held the role of CISO di General Motors. He then closely followed the attack suffered by Toyota, reported by Reuters. Which came shortly after the Japan announced it would boycott Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
Armor explains that: “The Dark Web has been particularly quiet about this attack so far. It is certainly possible behind the attack there is the russian government or a related cybercriminal organization, but it looks more like a typical ransomware attack or opportunistically conducted ”.
The expert pointed out that in the same period we also witnessed a cyber attack also a Bridgestone Tirealthough at the moment “it’s too early to tell if the two are connectedi.“
What we do know is that “cybersecurity has long been an ongoing challenge in the global automotive supply chain. Most of the equipment manufacturers in the industry have tens of thousands of suppliers of the most varied sizes, from Fortune 500 companies to small family businesses“. Something that makes it infinitely difficult to control every production step, if not impossible.
But Armor explains that when he was at General Motors “we had launched an initiative through theAutomotive Industry Action Group to develop and issue standard cybersecurity contractual requirements for vendors. Its adoption has improved, but there is still a need for it to be made stronger and strengthened “.
The question then still remains the fact that companies are as safe as they are the ‘weakest’ link in cybersecurity of the chain. We need higher standards for suppliers. Find more information about Nozomi Networks on the official website.