Hold my beer: Asahi becomes latest victim in cyberattack wave

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Japanese brewing giant Asahi Group has been forced to suspend production at some of its 30 domestic factories following a major cyberattack that has brought order and shipment operations to a standstill.

The company, which owns major international brands including Peroni and Grolsch alongside its popular Asahi Super Dry beer, is actively investigating the incident but has provided no timeline for when normal services will resume.

Asahi disclosed the “system failure” on Monday, September 29, confirming it was caused by a cyberattack that began around 7 am that day. The system outage has impacted group companies in Japan, leading to the suspension of all order, shipment and call centre operations, including customer service desks.

While the company has not revealed the identity of the attackers or their entry vector, it stated that at this time, there is no confirmed leakage of personal or customer information.

The incident highlights a growing trend of cyberattacks targeting global manufacturing and retail giants. Asahi is now the latest high-profile victim, following recent attacks on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and luxury retailer Harrods.

JLR was hit earlier in the month, an attack so severe it forced the company to shut down systems across the UK, Slovakia, India and Brazil, leading to factory suspensions. The UK government was compelled to underwrite a £1.5 billion loan guarantee to support JLR’s supply chain and protect jobs.

Meanwhile, UK luxury department store Harrods suffered a major third-party data breach last week, resulting in the theft of 430,000 customer records. Although no financial or sensitive password data was compromised, the incident raised serious concerns over supply chain security.

Says Florimond de Tinguy, VP of Sales at enterprise commerce platform VTEX:

“Asahi’s suspension of operations in Japan demonstrates just how fragile even well-established global brands can be when their core systems are disrupted. Operational downtime is not the only concern, it’s critical to consider the wider implications that this incident will have on customer trust, partners in the supply chain and brand equity.”

As Asahi investigates and works to restore its systems, which produce not only beer but also products like Nikka Whisky, the incident serves as a stark reminder that even the world’s largest companies remain vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated digital threats.

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