- The Japanese power giant reveals it has lost drives containing data from millions of clients
- The drive was left in an apparently unlocked locker
- Almost 11 million customers are at risk, but no bank or card data was affected
A Japanese energy giant has apologized after losing a physical storage drive containing data on millions of its customers.
Workers for Kyushu Electric Power Co. apparently misplaced the drive, which had been left in an unlocked cabinet, the company explained in an official statement.
The drive allegedly contained information on up to 10.9 million accounts, including customer names, electricity usage data and phone numbers – although the company said no bank account information or credit card data was stored.
Going AWOL
One of Japan’s largest regional utilities, Kyushu Electric Power Company supplies electricity throughout the Kyushu region, which has a total population of about 12.5 million people and includes major prefectures such as Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Kagoshima.
In its announcement, the company explains that IT staff regularly perform backups to manage server storage.
It added that due to capacity constraints, on April 27, 2026, an external storage device was used for the task.
This drive was then stored in a server room cabinet protected by multiple layers of physical security – a location that only 57 people had access to.
But when IT staff went to retrieve the drive on May 26, they found the enclosure had been left unlocked and the driver missing.
Kyushu Electric filed a police report on June 4, and the company says it has since conducted its own investigations, including interviewing all staff who entered the server room – but the drive cannot be found.
“The company is investigating all options, including unauthorized removal of the device, but it has not yet been found,” it said in its statement.
The incident has now been reported to Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission and the relevant government authorities, with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry reportedly giving Kyushu Electric until July 8, 2026 to report full details of the incident and the preventive measures taken.
Via Bleeding computer
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