Published on: January 9, 2025
Casio suffered a data breach that resulted in thousands of people’s sensitive data being exposed by hackers. In October, the Japanese tech giant Casio disclosed that its systems faced unauthorized access to its systems and that there was some disruption. The company promptly began a forensic investigation of the intrusion to figure out exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, its research determined that nearly 6,500 employees had their data compromised by foreign threat agents. On top of that, roughly 1,900 business partners and a small subset of customers were affected.
Not everyone had the same data stolen by the hackers, but the compromised info includes full names, email addresses, contact info, phone numbers, employee IDs, gender, date of birth, and employee taxpayer IDs. Some sales contracts, documents, and other business details were taken.
It is extremely sensitive information that could be used to perpetuate phishing scams and future cyber attacks.
“No evidence of data theft was found in the customer database or in the system that handles customers’ personal information,” Casio assured its customers.
A hacker group known as Underground took credit for the attack. It attempted to extort Casio and threatened to leak personal data unless Casio paid a ransom. Underground claimed to have stolen more than 200 GB of data. Adding some weight to their claims, Underground posted data samples on their website for anyone to read.
“Following consultation with law enforcement agencies, outside counsel, and security experts, Casio has not responded to any unreasonable demands from the ransomware group that carried out the unauthorized access,” Casio said in a recent incident report.
The company confirmed that the threat actors hacked into vulnerable offshore companies with the aid of a phishing scam. Once unauthorized access was gained, they began harvesting as much data as they could find. After discovering this vulnerability, Casio worked to strengthen its cyber security.
“Casio will continue to strengthen IT security for the entire group, including overseas offices,” Casio said.