> Nikkei data breach affected over 1.8 million records

Nikkei disclosed a data breach affecting over 1.8 million records after hackers used stolen credentials to access a cloud service for system development. Japanese media company Nikkei has disclosed a data breach affecting more than 1.8 million records. The company, known for its financial news publications, including The Nikkei and the Financial Times, said attackers accessed a cloud service used for system development. On the morning of October 7, the hackers used previously stolen credentials to gain access. Nikkei has published details of the incident in an official statement. “A cloud service used by Nikkei Inc. for system development was accessed without authorization, and as of October 16, approximately 1.83 million items of personal information had been leaked.” reads the data breach notice published by the company. “About 150,000 items contained one or more of the following: name, email address, postal address, phone number or date of birth. Of these, about 120,000 included an email address. About 1.68 million items contained only information that cannot identify an individual. No credit card information is included in any of the leaked information.” The security breach did not compromise financial information. The company reported the breach to Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission on October 11. The company is still investigating the scope of the security breach and what personal information was stolen. According to the notice, attackers used stolen login details to access a cloud service on October 7. Nikkei has since blocked the stolen credentials. As of October 16, the company had found no signs of further damage, such as misuse of the leaked data, system outages, or changes to its data. Nikkei apologized to those affected and said it would contact anyone whose personal information was exposed. The company is investigating how the breach happened and plans to strengthen its security. Nikkei apologized for the incident and said it would notify everyone whose personal data was found to be exposed. In May 2022, the Japanese media giant Nikkei disclosed a ransomware attack, while in November 2025, it disclosed a data breach stemming from the compromise of a Slack account.  Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Nikkei)