Nikkei says attackers breached two email accounts, sent 9,000 phishing messages

Nikkei has disclosed that unknown attackers recently breached two employee email accounts, according to bleepingcomputer.com. One of the accounts was used to send thousands of phishing emails.

An employee's Google Workspace account was accessed in late July, exposing personal information of employees and business partners. The breach may have exposed the names and email addresses of 1,646 individuals. Nikkei changed the account's password in early August after a notification from Google.

In a separate incident, threat actors accessed another employee's Microsoft 365 account in September and used it to send 9,000 phishing emails targeting Nikkei staff and interviewees. On September 30, emails containing links to malicious websites were sent to internal staff and interviewees.

Nikkei said it changed passwords following the incidents, and no unauthorized logins have been confirmed since.

Earlier incidents

Last year, Nikkei revealed that its Slack messaging platform had been breached, affecting more than 17,000 employees and business partners. In May 2022, Nikkei's Singapore subsidiary was hit by a ransomware attack that affected a server likely containing customer data. In late September 2019, Nikkei lost approximately $29 million in a business email compromise attack targeting a Nikkei America employee.