Japan Is Facing a Growing Cybersecurity Crisis | News Roundup

Japan faces a growing cybersecurity crisis, with the notorious Qilin ransomware group targeting at least 53 Japanese companies, hospitals and schools since 2023. The group was extradited to Germany and arrested, following a series of data breaches that potentially exposed millions of customer records. Lawson revealed that personal information linked to 2.15 million Lawson IDs was leaked, while karaoke operator Daiichikosho reported that 8.72 million customer and employee records may have been compromised.

Park24's breach affected up to 6.6 million accounts, and other incidents involved companies like Rakuten Drive, GMO Research and Yakiniku King's parent company, Monogatari. Meanwhile, Nobel Prize-winning Japanese scientist Kenso Soai and French researcher Henri Kagan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a century-old mystery involving the "mirror images" of molecules.

Hokkaido has been named Japan's most attractive prefecture for the 18th consecutive year, with a score of 68.0. In a separate incident, a 39-year-old Okinawan woman's body was found in a hotel, and a US Marine stationed at Futenma Air Base was arrested on suspicion of murder and robbery. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi described the alleged crime as "extremely brutal and heinous," while Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi called it "utterly inexcusable."

The creator of Hunter × Hunter, Yoshihiro Togashi, has decided to stop accepting deadline-based work requests.