The car producer Honda stopped production in a Japan factory after they found traces of WannaCry ransomware in their computer networks.
The WannaCry ransomware struck the highlights again. This time the reason was the Honda Company’s latest news, stating that the production in one of the company’s plants had to be stopped due to malware attacks against their computers.
After finding that systems in Honda’s networks across Japan, China, North America, Europe, and some other regions have been infected by WannaCry ransomware, the car producer ceased its production in the Sayama plant, Northwest of Tokyo.
The Reuters agency claims that the security researchers have discovered the infection on Sunday.
“The automaker shut production on Monday at its Sayama plant, northwest of Tokyo, which produces models including the Accord sedan, Odyssey Minivan and Step Wagon compact multipurpose vehicle and has a daily output of around 1,000 vehicles.” the article states.
“Honda discovered on Sunday that the virus had affected networks across Japan, North America, Europe, China and other regions, a spokeswoman said, despite efforts to secure its systems in mid-May when the virus caused widespread disruption at plants, hospitals and shops worldwide.”
A Honda Company Spokesman said that the activities at their other plants had not been affected, and the regular operations at the Sayama plant had resumed on Tuesday.
At this point, it is still not clear why the WannaCry infection had remained in the company’s networks for 5 weeks after it was discovered, though, it is certain that Honda had yet to patch its systems with the highly critical patch released in March by Microsoft.
It is possible the company’s IT staff to have inadvertently blocked the access to the kill switch domain which partially stopped the infections. This could be the reason why WannaCry has infected Honda’s systems.
In fact, the Honda Company wasn’t the only one that was forced to shut down its networks due to the WannaCry virus. Some other car producers, like Nissan Motor and Renault, were also affected by the ransomware and had to cease their productions in factories in Great Britain, France, Japan, India, and Romania.
However, what is the most interesting thing about the recent WannaCry ransomware attacks, is the fact that all the systems were infected by a virus which had exploited a flaw that was fixed two months ago.
