Asahi Kasei Therapeutics Website Hit by Cyberattack
Japan's Asahi Kasei Therapeutics disclosed a cyberattack on its Pharma DIGITAL website, potentially exposing the data of up to 558,700 individuals.
Asahi Kasei Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical subsidiary of Japan's Asahi Kasei Group, announced on October 6th that its professional medical website, Pharma DIGITAL, was subjected to a cyberattack. The incident may have led to the leakage of personal information belonging to approximately 558,700 individuals.
The potentially exposed data includes names, affiliated institutions, and departments for around 514,000 healthcare professionals. Additionally, the email addresses of approximately 44,000 individuals and information related to about 700 employees of Asahi Kasei subsidiaries may also have been compromised. The Pharma DIGITAL website is designed to disseminate drug information and related materials to medical professionals.
The company was alerted to unauthorized access on October 2nd by a contractor operating the website. Operations on the site were immediately suspended, and measures were implemented to prevent further damage. Crucially, credit card information and similar sensitive data were not stored in the affected database, and no unauthorized use of the compromised information has been confirmed to date.
Asahi Kasei Therapeutics is in the process of notifying all affected healthcare professionals individually. The company stated it plans to investigate the cause of the unauthorized access and implement comprehensive measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.