Suspected cyberattack forces Honda to suspend vehicle shipments

Honda Motor temporarily halted shipments from some of its factories in Japan due to a suspected cyberattack that disrupted its internal network.

The Japanese carmaker is still working to fix its systems, which affected its plants on Monday. Honda is probing whether the system was attacked, spokesman Hidenori Takeyasu said.

There was no impact on production, with Honda’s inspection systems back online yesterday afternoon. The impact on overseas plants is still unclear, Takeyasu said.

The disruption comes as manufacturers have shut some offices and plants and let staff work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Japanese carmakers have slowly started to ramp up production after the country lifted the state of emergency. Honda resumed operation in the US from May 11, and plans to reopen its UK plant this week.

Honda’s car inspection system, used to check defects before shipping and registering car information, wasn’t able to access computers at its plants. The company found the system issues in early hours of Monday. Sky News earlier reported that there was unauthorised attempts to breach the automaker’s systems.