Hoya forced into production hiatus after cyberattack

Japanese-based corporation Hoya was recently hit by a cyberattack that affected major IT systems and several business divisions.

Hoya manufactures optical products, products for the healthcare market, and other technological products. The company has roughly 36,000 employees in more than 30 countries worldwide.

The full scope of the cyberattack is yet to be determined. However, the breach has impacted the production and distribution of Hoya products.

The cyberattack, dubbed “the incident,” was discovered on March 30th, 2024, when the company identified “a discrepancy in system behavior at one of (its) overseas offices,” the breach notice reads.

The matter was reported to authorities and external forensic investigators, who claimed the incident was caused by an unauthorized third party accessing Hoya’s servers.

The company responded promptly to the attack by isolating the failed servers and reporting the situation to authorities in the affected countries.

In the breach notification letter, the company states that the incident is still being investigated, but certain production plants and ordering systems have been affected.

While a forecast of the impact on Hoya’s production and distribution was unknown at the time of the breach notification letter, Reuters reported that the cyberattack affected the company’s eyeglass lens unit on Tuesday, April 4th, 2024, with the company no longer accepting orders due to the system breach.

Hoya is yet to determine whether threat actors have accessed any confidential or personal information belonging to the company – this analysis is said to “take a considerable number of days.”