Kadokawa Reveals Plans for Normalization of Services Following Cyber Attack

Kadokawa issued a statement following a cyber attack that led to many of the company’s services, including Niconico, going offline on June 8. In a statement posted on the official website, Kadokawa confirmed that it is looking into the extent of the damage caused by an attack on its central servers which hosted the Niconico services, and included ransomware. At the moment, there is no indication of an information leak but the investigators are looking into it.

To prevent further damage, Kadokawa shut off the affected servers which led to the whole data center being affected. In addition to Dwango’s Niconico, services such as accounting, publishing, and a number of anime websites were affected. The company apologized to everyone affected, stating that payments would be made to partners but that they should expect potential delays.

In regard to the publishing business, delays are to be expected. The ordering, digital manufacturing, and logistics systems have been suspended. Production has been decreased as some orders have been suspended. Printing (and reprinting) of some publications will be delayed as well, as editing and production support for both ebooks and physical books is down.

While stabilization is expected by the end of June, it will take longer to rebuild Niconico services. All official Niconico live broadcast programs and channel live broadcast programs using Niconico Live Broadcast and Niconico Channel will be suspended until the end of July. Users now have access to a lite version of the website, dubbed Nicnico Video: Re, where they will be able to watch selected content (mainly popular content from 2007) for free. The replacement is modeled after the early version of the Niconico website.

Niconico manga service was not affected but it will be going forward with basic functions, such as reading, commenting, and adding to favorites. Plans are to restore it by the end of the month.

Planned broadcasts of Kadokawa-produced anime do not appear to have been affected and are instead just not available on Niconico. The upcoming Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom movie announced the new version of the official website earlier today, as it is scheduled to premiere on June 27 in Japan.

Source: Official Website