The Port of Nagoya, Japan’s largest port by total cargo throughput and responsible for handling some of Toyota’s car exports, has suffered a crippling system glitch, with the port operator saying Wednesday it suspects a cyberattack, according to The Japan Times.
As of noon, the port remained unable to load and unload containers from trailers. Police have launched an investigation, saying the operator has received a ransom demand in exchange for the recovery of its system.
The system failure occurred Tuesday morning when an employee could not start a computer, according to the Nagoya Harbor Transportation Association.
A message indicating that the computer system had been infected with ransomware was somehow sent to a printer, a source familiar with the case said.
Ransomware is malware that encrypts data and demands payment in exchange for restoring access.
The operator said it intends to resume operations on Thursday morning.
A spokesperson for Toyota said that the company is closely monitoring the situation while the port system glitch has not affected shipments of finished vehicles or production.
Last September, the association’s website was hit by a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack in which a massive amount of data was sent to cause disruption, and Russian hacker group Killnet issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack.