Nikkei: about 1.83 million records leaked from a cloud service
Nikkei said on October 16, 2026 that about 1.83 million personal data records, including names, telephone numbers, email addresses and addresses, had been leaked after stolen credentials were used to access a cloud service.
What happened
Nikkei Inc., the Japanese publisher, said on October 16, 2026 that about 1.83 million personal data records had been leaked following unauthorised access to a cloud service it uses. According to the company, the authentication credentials used to access the cloud service were stolen, and the system was subject to unauthorised access from the early hours of October 7 through that morning. Nikkei said no secondary damage resulting from the leaked information has been confirmed, and its system was not suspended.
Who is affected
The records include names, telephone numbers, email addresses and addresses. Nikkei said about 1.68 million of the roughly 1.83 million records do not contain information that could identify an individual on its own — which leaves a smaller set of records where the fields can be tied to a person. This disclosure is separate from the two employee cloud account compromises Nikkei announced on October 4, 2026, which involved 1,646 people and about 9,000 phishing emails sent from a compromised account.
How serious
The concrete risk is targeted phishing and impersonation: names combined with a phone number, email address or postal address can be used to craft messages that appear to come from Nikkei or another trusted party and to pass casual identity checks. Because the access came through stolen credentials, the incident also underlines the account-takeover risk for any service where a single password still opens the door. Records that cannot identify someone on their own carry less direct risk.
What to do now
Be wary of unexpected email, calls or post that use your real name and contact details and claim to be from Nikkei — reach the company through its official site instead of using contact details in the message. Use a unique password and stronger sign-in protection, such as MFA or a passkey, on email and other important accounts, since stolen credentials were the route in here.
Sources: Kyodo via Alo Japan · Asia Daily