Panasonic Cyberattack: 2nd Time Within Six Months

Hackers like to go after tried-and-true victims. And in the case of Japanese tech giant Panasonic, the attackers didn’t even wait a full year before hitting the company again. February 2022 might have possibly marked the beginning of the end of winter, but for Panasonic it was instead the beginning of hack attack round two, hitting the company’s Canadian network in another orchestrated cyberattack.

The response was immediate once the breach was identified. The company went through the requisite process of shutting off access. Wiping everything clean and restoring business redundancy for a sanitized operation again. Additionally, their service providers were also incorporated in the cleansing, purging any remnant of the malware that had been deposited into Panasonic’s network.

The hackers went after data and information that would most likely get a response: personnel and financial records. No surprise, the expectation was that Panasonic was going to pay up on a demanded ransom for the information being returned without being leaked to online black markets and the public.

According to VX-Underground, a malware research organization, The Conti ransomware gang is responsible for the attack and has stolen over 2.8 GB of data. The ransomware attack was not denied by the company when the media pressed for more information; they simply confirmed that the Canadian side of the company was hit without any further details.

This latest attack comes in less than six months after a previous hit went after the first attack in November 2021. And earlier, back at the end of 2020, the company lost similar financial data and email rosters on their India operations side to an earlier third hack.

Once is often treated as an oversight. Twice is being sloppy. However, three hacks in less than two years pretty much indicate that Panasonic worldwide simply isn’t taking cyberattack threats seriously. And that should put increased pressure on their security professionals.