Kawasaki’s European arm restores operation after cyberattack claimed by Ransomhub

Japanese motor vehicle giant Kawasaki said its European offices are in the process of recovering from a cyberattack that has caused a range of issues over the last week. 

A notorious ransomware gang claimed it attacked the company last week but Kawasakihas not responded to requests for comment about the incident. 

On Thursday evening, the company posted a statement confirming it was “the subject of a cyberattack” which was not successful but “resulted in the company’s servers being temporarily isolated until a strategic recovery plan was initiated later on the same day.”

“[Kawasaki Motors Europe] and its country Branches operate a large number of servers and, as a precaution, it was decided to isolate each one and put a cleansing process in place whereby all data was checked and any suspicious material identified and dealt with,” the company said. 

The European office’s IT department and external cybersecurity advisors “ spent the following week isolating and health-checking all servers and restoring their interconnectivity.” 

By the start of this week,more than 90% of Kawasaki Motors Europe’s server functionality was restored “despite the need to ensure that each and every server was free of non-authorised information.”

Business involving motor vehicle dealers and third-party suppliers has resumed, they added. 

The company reported more than $3 billion in earnings last quarter and is one of the largest manufacturers of motorcycles, utility vehicles and more. 

In its dark web post last week, the RansomHub operation said it stole 487 gigabytes of data from Kawasaki Motors Europe. 

Cybersecurity experts and federal agencies across the world have honed their focus in on RansomHub since it has emerged as the de-facto successor to now-defunct ransomware gangs like LockBit and AlphV. At least 210 organizations have dealt with ransomware attacks launched by affiliates of RansomHub, according to the FBI and other law enforcement bodies.