Toyota Motor Corporation is the company behind the Toyota car brand.

The Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer that was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937, produces sedans, coupes, vans, trucks, hybrids, and crossovers, and ship them to all over the world.

By producing about 10 million vehicles per year, Toyota is considered among the biggest automobile manufacturers in the world.

Cars the company make, travel along its production lines inside its plants.

With deadlines to reach and targets set, even a simple mistake can create delays. And this time, Toyota had to stop its car productions operations in its many plants for at least 24 hours.

"Due to a system failure at a domestic supplier (Kojima Industries Corporation), we have decided to suspend the operation of 28 lines at 14 plants in Japan on Tuesday, March 1st," Toyota wrote on its global website.

This happened because the company suffered from a cyberattack that was launched to one of its major suppliers.

The company in question is Kojima Industries Corp..

The Japanese company supplies Toyota with both exterior and interior car parts, including plastic parts, and components used in its air-conditioning system and steering wheel.

The cyberattack didn't affect Kojima's production, but disabled its communications with Toyota and rendered its production monitor useless.

The issue affected Toyota's "just in time" manufacturing system that requires parts be delivered just before they're installed so they don't have to be stocked.

Because of the cyberattack, Toyota had to halt its productions to prevent longer-term damage, and prioritized inspection and recovery of the system.

The two companies had to work out alternative ways to carry on with the manufacturing.

Toyota said it was able to resume operation by tapping into a backup network between it and the supplier.

Toyota didn't mention a cyberattack on its website, but Kojima confirmed the issue.

"It is true that we have been hit by some kind of cyberattack. We are still confirming the damage and we are hurrying to respond, with the top priority of resuming Toyota's production system as soon as possible," a Kojima official said.

The matter was huge because Kojima only supplies parts to Toyota, and is a top-tier supplier of some parts, and a second-tier supplier of others, the Kojima spokesperson said. Toyota's operations in Japan is so huge that they encompass a supply chain of 60,000 companies across four tiers.

The server problem was partly solved about a day later, but the company decided it needed an extra day to get the overall computer system going, according to Kojima.

"We apologize to our relevant suppliers and customers for any inconvenience this may cause," Toyota said.

Kojima was not the only supplier affected, as later, it was reported that two other Toyota partners were also hit, including truck manufacturer Hino Motors and Daihatsu Motor.

Because of the attack, Hino suspended all operations at its Koga facility, which manufactures large and midsize trucks for export and domestic sale, and at its Hamura plant, which makes small trucks and handles production for Toyota. As for Daihatsu, the company is shutting down productions at its plant at Kyoto Prefecture.

"We are aware of media reports" on the incident, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. "The government is working to confirm the situation."

Government officials are also looking into the matter.

This incident has cost Toyota and its partners a delayed production of at least 13,000 new vehicles.