One of Japan’s most prominent animation studios, Toei, suffered a cyberattack that caused a delay in releasing new episodes of several animes, especially the popular series ONE PIECE.
The news has disappointed the fans since they are waiting for the much-awaited 1000th episode of the highly acclaimed Japanese anime series.
According to the announcement of Toei, the anime studio identified unwanted and unauthorised activity in their systems last March 6. The following day, the Japanese studio released an advisory stating they had to stop all operations in their internal systems to mitigate the potential damage of the cyber intrusion. The anime studio also announced that they deployed an investigation for the incident.
The investigation will also identify if the hackers had stolen data during their stay on the studio’s system. The attack is alarming since a potential data breach might affect business associates and clients.
Toei then said they employed a third-party cybersecurity firm to aid the investigation. They have also notified the law enforcement sector regarding the issue.
Toei Animation has apologised to their fans because of the delay of their favourite anime shows.
After the cyberattack, Toei Animation released an update regarding the situation they are experiencing. They informed their fans that the studio would delay new episodes of their favourite anime shows until further notice.
Toei Animation is a Japanese animation studio that started operating in 1948. The studio produced several hit manga adaptations such as Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, and Digimon.
Unfortunately, the delay in producing new episodes of ONE PIECE will also affect numerous streaming platforms such as Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Netflix.
ONE PIECE has consistently been among the best anime TV shows in terms of viewership in Japan. Reports stated that over 2 million viewers expect news in 2016, which has increased over the previous years.
Researchers assume that the cyber-attack may be a ransomware attempt since the studio admitted that they are experiencing trouble restoring their internal systems.
