Washington Hotel in Japan Discloses Ransomware Infection Incident: Cybersecurity Concerns Rise

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Washington Hotel Discloses Ransomware Infection Incident

A prominent Japanese hospitality chain, Washington Hotel, has disclosed a ransomware infection incident that compromised its servers and exposed various business data.

Incident Details

The breach, which occurred on February 13, 2026, at 22:00 local time, prompted the company to establish an internal task force and engage external cybersecurity experts to assess the impact and coordinate recovery efforts.

Washington Hotel, which operates 30 locations across Japan with 11,000 rooms and hosts nearly 5 million guests annually, reported that its IT staff immediately disconnected servers from the internet to prevent further damage.

The company stated that it began consulting with law enforcement and external cybersecurity experts shortly after the incident.

Impact of the Incident

Although the investigation is ongoing, Washington Hotel confirmed that the attacker gained access to various business data stored on the affected servers.

However, customer data is unlikely to have been exposed, as it is stored on separate servers managed by a different company, which has not reported any unauthorized access.

The incident has impacted operations at some Washington Hotel properties, including the temporary unavailability of credit card terminals.

Despite this, the company reported no significant operational disruption.

Investigation and Response

The financial impact of the incident is currently under review, and Washington Hotel has promised to provide updates if additional relevant details emerge.

As of now, no ransomware groups have claimed responsibility for the attack on known dark-web-based extortion portals.

Related Incidents

This incident is the latest in a series of high-profile breaches targeting Japanese companies, including Nissan, Muji, Asahi, and NTT.

In a separate development, JPCERT/CC recently disclosed that hackers were exploiting an arbitrary command injection flaw in Soliton Systems FileZen products, tracked under CVE-2026-25108.

This vulnerability affects a widely used file-sharing appliance in Japanese companies, which was also targeted in 2021.

Conclusion

Washington Hotel’s incident highlights the ongoing threat of ransomware attacks against businesses in Japan and the importance of robust cybersecurity measures to prevent and respond to such incidents.