Japan faces an immediate beer shortage Asahithe best-selling in the country, after a cyber attack against the company that produces it forced it to stop your systems out of service. The group Asahi Brewerywhich markets several brands of beer in addition to the one that bears its name, issued a statement Monday announcing that Ordering, shipping and call center operations had been suspended due to systems crashing, an outage that was limited to Japan.
Given the situation, the company has begun to process orders manuallyaccording to an update he published today, but orders through the system and large-scale shipments are still stopped and you can’t even receive emails from external sources.
Asahi notes that he has been the subject of an attack by ransomwarealthough he avoids giving more details ‘to prevent further damage’. In an attack of this type, the affected computers are encrypted and blocked, inaccessible to the company until the conditions of the ransom demanded by the cybercriminals are met. The company cannot currently offer a clear recovery schedule for the systems, although it has said that it is preparing the gradual resumption of call center activity for next week.
‘We took immediate action to contain and respond to the incident. We placed the highest priority on protecting critical data, including the personal information of our customers and business partners, and we immediately isolate affected systems to minimize the impact. Subsequent investigations have confirmed indications that suggest a possible unauthorized transfer of data. “We are conducting an investigation to determine the nature and extent of information that may have been subject to an unauthorized transfer,” the company said.
The risk of shortage of the beer most consumed by the Japanese is immediate. Financial Times has reported that large Japanese retailers estimate that Asahi Super Dry stocks could run out this weekend if supply chains are not restored.
Asahi Super Dry had a market share of 38% in 2024 andoutperforms competitors like Kirin Ichiban and Sapporo Black Label in sales and popularity. This ‘dry’ lager beer (Karakuchi) was released in 1987 and it is also the most recognized company worldwide.
Asahi Brewery was founded in 1889 as Osaka Brewery Ltd and in 1892 he launched his first beer under the name Asahi, simply. The company also produces others such as Kozel and Pilsner Urquell.