Japanese publishing giant Nikkei announced that its Slack messaging platform had been compromised, potentially exposing the personal information of over 17,000 employees and business partners.
Nikkei is a major media corporation that owns the Financial Times and The Nikkei, the world's largest financial newspaper. The media giant has approximately 3.7 million digital paid subscriptions and over 40 affiliated companies involved in publishing, broadcasting, and database services.
Details of the Breach
In a statement, Nikkei confirmed that attackers gained access to employee Slack accounts. They achieved this by using authentication credentials stolen after an employee's computer was infected with malware. Nikkei discovered the security breach in September, which immediately prompted security measures, including mandatory password changes for all employees.
The company stated that the potentially leaked information includes the names, email addresses, and chat histories for the 17,368 individuals registered on Slack.
Despite the scale of the incident, Nikkei said the stolen information does not fall under Japan's Personal Information Protection Law, which mandates reporting for certain data breaches. Nevertheless, the company voluntarily notified the country's Personal Information Protection Commission, citing its commitment to transparency and the incident's "significance."
The publisher asserted that no information related to confidential sources or reporting activities was compromised during the incident, adding that personal data collected for journalistic purposes remains secure. Nikkei stated, "We take this incident seriously and will further strengthen personal information management to prevent any recurrence."
The company has faced past security incidents. In May 2022, Nikkei's Singapore subsidiary was hit by a ransomware attack that impacted a server that "likely contained customer data." Furthermore, in late September 2019, Nikkei lost approximately $29 million in a business email compromise (BEC) attack after an employee was tricked by scammers posing as a Nikkei executive.
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