AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) – Several employees of Bridgestone are reporting local plants shut down for the day on Sunday.
Bridgestone’s corporate offices confirmed they launched an investigation into “a potential information security incident.”
As it stands right now, the Aiken passenger and light truck tire plant closed for the day on Sunday. Plants across North America and Latin America have also been impacted. One man as far as Quebec reached out to News 12 and said a plant’s night shift employees were also told not to come in for work.
We have not received word on when plant employees might be able to return back to work.
Bridgestone’s full statement is below:
Bridgestone Americas is currently investigating a potential information security incident. Since learning of the potential incident in the early morning hours of February 27, we have launched a comprehensive investigation to quickly gather facts while working to ensure the security of our IT systems. Out of an abundance of caution, we disconnected many of our manufacturing and retreading facilities in Latin America and North America from our network to contain and prevent any potential impact, including those at Aiken Passenger and Light Truck Tire Plant. First shift operations were shut down, so those employees were sent home.
Until we learn more from this investigation, we cannot determine with certainty the scope or nature of any potential incident, but we will continue to work diligently to address any potential issues that may affect our operations, our data, our teammates, and our customers.
The measures to send employees home were taken out of an abundance of caution while the company works to figure out what exactly happened, what caused it, and who is impacted.
It is unclear exactly what caused this incident, and Jeffrey Morris, an assistant professor at Augusta University’s College of Computer and Cyber Science, said it is often difficult to determine the source of potential cyber security breaches.
“Typically in these type of events, you don’t really know until it’s long after we capture the data and then try and figure out what actually happened,” said Morris.
Morris said cyber security incidents like this are not uncommon, but their are steps people can take to ensure it doesn’t happen to them.
“We advise people to be careful of any suspicious emails, are there misspellings, does it come from somebody you don’t know that you’ve ever gotten that email from you keep your anti-virus updated, keep your programs updated,” said Morris.
After News 12 reported this story, claims started circulating on social media that Kimberly-Clark, Shaw, and other companies with local ties experienced a cyber attack. Representatives with both Kimberly-Clark and Shaw say they have not experienced any sort of data breach.
Again, Bridgestone America has called this a “potential information security incident.” News 12 asked if the incident is being classified as a cyber-attack, but so far we have not received an answer.
Copyright 2022 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
