Japanese retail company Muji has taken offline its store due to a logistics outage caused by a ransomware attack at its delivery partner, Askul.
On Sunday evening (Japan timezone), Muji said that the issue caused all retail services were affected, including browsing or making purchases on online stores, viewing order histories via the Muji app, and displaying some web content.
Although the company did not specify a timeline for restoring the systems, an update on Monday afternoonstated that only purchases from the online store and applying for a monthly flat-rate service continued to be impacted.
Muji also said that it was investigating which shipments were impacted to determine the orders placed before the attack and send email notification to customers.
A retailer ofminimalist household goods, clothing, and furniture, Muji operates more thana thousand stores in Japan, China, Singapore, Europe, Australia, and North America.
The company has an annual revenue of roughly $4 billion, and it employs over 24,500 people worldwide.
Askul is a large business-to-business and business-to-consumer office supplies and logistics e-commerce company owned by Yahoo! Japan Corporation.
The company issued a statement yesterday, informing that it was targeted by ransomware that caused operational disruptions.
“Currently, a system failure has occurred on the Askul website due to a ransomware infection, and we have suspended orders and shipping operations,” reads the announcement(machine translated)
“We are currently investigating the scope of the impact, including the leakage of personal information and customer data, and will notify you as soon as we know.”
Product return applications, receipt mailing, catalog shipping, and collection services have been suspended, while Askul’s customer service desk is also unreachable right now, by phone or through the website.
Given that Askul only handles Muji’s Japan sales, the disruption only impacts that region, and Muji’s shops in other countries are available and operating normally.
At the time of writing, no ransomware gangs have announced Askul on their extortion portals.
This incident comes shortly after another ransomware attack on Japan’s largest beer producer, Asahi, that forced it to suspend production operations and delay scheduled product launches.
The attack was claimed by Qilin ransomware. The company confirmed in a statement that the hackers stoledata from its systems.
