Hitachi Vantara, the IT arm of the Japanese multinational Hitachi, confirmed a ransomware attack on April 26, 2025. The company activated its incident response protocols immediately to contain the damage. Although the company did not name the attackers, reports confirm that the Akira ransomware group was responsible for the breach. Akira is a notorious group that has previously attacked major organizations globally, including Stanford University and Nissan’s Oceania operations.
The attack disrupted Hitachi Vantara’s internal systems, leading to an immediate shutdown of several services.
However, customer cloud services were unaffected, minimizing the direct impact on external clients. Despite this, some remote operations and manufacturing systems, particularly those related to government projects, experienced significant disruption. Hitachi Vantara has enlisted external cybersecurity experts to investigate and manage the breach, with efforts underway to restore systems securely.
The Akira ransomware group stole sensitive files from Hitachi Vantara and left ransom notes across the compromised systems.
This group has extorted millions of dollars from over 300 organizations globally since its emergence in 2023. While the exact ransom demand in Hitachi’s case is unknown, the group’s previous demands have varied from $200,000 to several million dollars, indicating a substantial extortion attempt. The FBI has tracked Akira’s operations and reported significant ransom payments amounting to around $42 million by April 2024.
Despite the severity of the attack, the company emphasized that customers using self-hosted environments could still access their data. However, internal operations, including the company’s website, customer support, and remote access services, remain offline. Hitachi Vantara is actively working with experts to assess the full extent of the breach and restore affected systems securely. This attack highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in the IT services sector, as ransomware groups continue targeting critical industries.
Reference:
