Japan is facing an Asahi beer shortage following a major cyber attack that has affected operations across the country.

Production halted at most Asahi Group’s factories on Monday, after the attack affected the company’s ordering and delivering systems and call centre operations, including customer service desks.

Additionally, Asahi is currently unable to receive email communications from external sources.

The company said on Friday that it doesn’t know when its supply chain will be fully restored.

“We are actively investigating the cause and working to restore operations; however, there is currently no estimated timeline for recovery. The system failure is limited to our operations within Japan,” the company said in a statement.

Asahi has traced the attack to ransomware, which involves hackers encrypt entire fleets of computers and demanding payment to unlock them.

“To prevent further damage, we are withholding specific details regarding the cyberattack,” the company said.

Asahi said investigations have confirmed traces suggesting a potential unauthorised transfer of data.

“We are conducting investigation to determine the nature and scope of the information that may have been subject to unauthorised transfer,” the company said.

President and Group CEO Atsushi Katsuki said: “I would like to sincerely apologise for any difficulties caused to our stakeholders by the recent system disruption. We are continuing our investigation to determine the nature and scope of the potential unauthorised data transfer.

“We are making every effort to restore the system as quickly as possible, while implementing alternative measures to ensure continued product supply to our customers. We appreciate your understanding and support.”

The company will partially and gradually resume call centre operations including customer service desks during the week of October 6.

“Although system-based order and shipment processes remain suspended, ensuring product supply to customers has been set as our top priority and we have begun partial manual order processing and shipment.”

The manual order processing involves “in-person and handwriting orders” according to Reuters. However, Asahi has been prioritising orders for food and soft drinks, rather than its alcoholic drinks.

Supermarkets and other retailers are preparing for empty beer shelves, with spokesperson for Seven + I Holdings, which operates 7-11, announcing it would put up notices informing customers of the issue.

Asahi said the scope of the system disruption is currently limited to Japan.

Cyber attacks are becoming an increasing problem in Japan – there were 116 reported ransomware cases in the country in the first half of 2025.

Asahi noted in a report it released last year that a cyber attack was one of the major risks it faced in the medium to short term.