Japanese Publishing Giant, Nikkei, Hit by Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace Account Breaches

Nikkei has disclosed two separate breaches involving employee accounts on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, with one incident used to send thousands of phishing emails.

Microsoft 365 account used to send 9,000 phishing emails

Japanese media giant Nikkei disclosed two separate compromises involving employee email accounts.

Attackers accessed a Microsoft 365 account in September and used the compromised credentials to send around 9,000 phishing emails containing links to malicious websites to Nikkei employees and interviewees.

Nikkei changed the affected account’s passwords and said it has detected no additional unauthorized logins since then.

The company also contacted recipients and asked them to delete the phishing messages.

Google Workspace breach exposed contact details

Nikkei also disclosed a separate compromise involving a Google Workspace account in late July.

The breach may have exposed the names and email addresses of 1,646 employees and business partners.

Nikkei discovered the incident in early August after receiving a notification from Google and changed the affected account’s password.

The exposed information did not include data belonging to readers or interviewees.

Nikkei warns about further impersonation attempts

Nikkei warned that attackers may continue sending emails that impersonate the company or its subsidiaries.

The company has not attributed either breach to a specific threat actor. It also has not confirmed whether the Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace incidents are connected.

In other security news, Google suspended its OSS vulnerability reports program as AI reports surged, Microsoft urged Exchange admins to patch a critical flaw, and Warlock ransomware exploited SharePoint flaws to breach networks.

Via BleepingComputer