Toei Animation Reveals Recent Hack Was Result Of Targeted Ransomware Attack
The recent hack of Toei Animation, which resulted in a delay to the production schedules various anime series that continues to effect them to this day, has been found to have been the consequence of a targeted ransomware attack.
Source: One Piece Episode 1009 “Sasaki’s Onslaught! Armored Division vs. Yamato” (2022), Toei Animation
On March 11, Easter came early when Toei Animation announced that five days earlier, an unauthorized third party accessed the company’s network and proceeded to cause a partial shutdown of the company’s computing systems. Specifically, the hack halted internal systems that were used in the production process of their various anime series.
As such, the hack kept on giving by subsequently affecting the broadcast schedules for One Piece, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Delicious Party Precure, and Digimon Ghost Game, starting with the respectives episodes of each series slated to air on the weekend of March 12th-13th.
Source: Toei Animation Press Release
On March 8th, the NHK reported (via machine translation provided by DeepL) that after a preliminary investigation, Toei Animation “believed that the cyber-attack was caused by ‘ransomware,’ a ransom-type computer virus.”
Information in regards to the demands of the ransom, the type of virus the hacker used, and the origin of the virus was not revealed.
Source: Digimon Ghost Game Episode 10 “Game of Death” (2022), Toei Animation
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As defined by the FBI, a ransomware attack is “a type of malicious software, or malware, that prevents you from accessing your computer files, systems, or networks and demands you pay a ransom for their return. Ransomware attacks can cause costly disruptions to operations and the loss of critical information and data.”
Toei also confirmed that they had shut down parts of its internal systems to investigate the extent of the virus’ reach.
The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (JPCERT)…
