A ransomware virus attacked Casio – hackers stole personal data of clients and employees

Japanese electronics giant Casio has confirmed that a ransomware attack earlier this month led to the theft of customer data.

Image source: Bleeping Computer

Casio said on Oct. 7 it had suffered a cyberattack but did not then disclose the nature of the incident, which caused an unspecified “system failure” across the company. In a new statement on Friday, the company confirmed that it had fallen victim to the ransomware virus.

Casio said in a statement that the attackers gained access to personal information belonging to Casio employees, contractors, business partners and job applicants, as well as confidential company data, including invoices, human resources files and some technical information.

The hackers also accessed “information about some customers,” Casio said, but did not specify what types of data were accessed or how many people were affected so far. The company claims that no credit card information was compromised as its Casio ID and ClassPad services were not affected by the breach.

Casio did not say who was behind the attack. However, the Underground hacker community claimed responsibility for the hack, writes the TechCrunch portal, citing the group’s statement on one of the darknet forums. Underground is a relatively new hacker group whose activity in cyber attacks was first noticed in June 2023.

In a post on the dark web, Underground noted that it stole approximately 200 GB of data from Casio, including legal documents, salary information and personal information of Casio employees. The hacker group published examples of stolen data, which were reviewed by TechCrunch journalists. It is unknown whether Casio received a ransom demand from Underground. The company declined to answer questions from TechCrunch.

In its latest statement, Casio said the “full extent of damage” caused by the ransomware was still being investigated. Some Casio systems remain “unusable,” the company said.