Nidec confirms 50,694 files leaked from Vietnamese subsidiary

Nidec Corporation, the Japanese maker of precision motors, confirmed in October 2024 that documents stolen from its Vietnamese subsidiary had been published on a dark web leak site after the group refused to pay a ransom.

The subsidiary, Nidec Precision Vietnam Corporation, said a criminal group contacted it on August 5, 2024 claiming to have taken documents and files from one of its servers. Nidec confirmed on August 9 that the stolen information was accessible on the criminal group's dark web site, and its August 12 public report disclosed that some of the material had been posted. Further leaks were confirmed in September, when NPCV filed reports with Vietnam's Cybersecurity and Hi-tech Crime Prevention Division. Its follow-up report, published on October 17, put the total at 50,694 files.

The stolen material was commercial and internal rather than personal: company documents, letters from business partners, green procurement paperwork, occupational health and safety policies, and transaction records including purchase orders, invoices and receipts. Nidec said no personal information subject to mandatory reporting under Japanese data protection law was involved, and that it had found no evidence of secondary damage or misuse.

The company attributed the intrusion to stolen credentials for a general domain account at the Vietnamese unit, which gave the attacker access to whatever files that account could reach. In response it scanned its servers, reset passwords, reviewed access rights, suspended the VPN device believed to have been used in the attack, and brought in external security specialists and legal counsel. Press reporting at the time linked the incident to the 8Base and Everest extortion groups, both of which listed Nidec on their leak sites during 2024.