The Financial Times reports that Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party convened an emergency meeting of the National Cybersecurity Strategy Headquarters after more than 20 major companies disclosed cyberattacks in recent weeks. NCSH head Masaaki Taira called the country’s position “a state of emergency in cyber space,” while cybersecurity minister Toshiharu Furukawa described it as “extremely critical.”
What triggered the alarm
Reported targets ranged from car-rental operator Times Car and convenience-store chain Lawson to hospitals and government facilities. The affected companies warned that tens of millions of pieces of customer data may have leaked, a scale that keeps the possible exposure distinct from confirmed theft.
The Financial Services Agency urged banks to move quickly toward accepting chip-enabled identification, including passports and MyNumber cards, after a Times Car leak involving stored driver’s-license images. JR East separately said 1.67 million customer email addresses may have leaked from its booking system. The FT linked leaks at JR East, local governments and hundreds of other businesses to a ransomware attack disclosed by SoftBank subsidiary IDC Frontier.
Where AI fits
The latest wave of attacks in Japan has not been clearly linked to AI. Masaki Hiraoka, Blackpanda's managing director for northeast Asia, told the FT that the technology is reducing the time and expertise needed to investigate potential targets before an attack.
With AI handling parts of that process, Hiraoka said, a small number of attackers could examine far more systems. As PCMag highlighted, that could make smaller services that once were not worth the effort viable targets. The warning does not show that AI caused the incidents behind Japan's emergency response.
