Ei­sai cy­ber at­tack leads to in­ves­ti­ga­tion of po­ten­tial da­ta leaks amid grow­ing in­dus­try threat

Ei­sai has fall­en vic­tim to a ran­somware at­tack, the com­pa­ny re­port­ed Tues­day, as ex­perts warn that drug­mak­ers are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing tar­get­ed by hack­ers.

The in­ci­dent was de­tect­ed late Sat­ur­day night Japan time, the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment, and led Ei­sai Group to take cer­tain sys­tems of­fline in and out­side of Japan. Its cor­po­rate web­sites and email sys­tems are still up and run­ning. Ran­somware is a type of mal­ware that en­crypts files, ren­der­ing them use­less. At­tack­ers then de­mand a ran­som in ex­change for de­cryp­tion.

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