Japan to launch team of white-hat hackers to counter waves of cyberattacks

Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Ryosei Akazawa announced the formation of a team of cybersecurity experts specializing in ethical hacking to address recent surges of unauthorized access and data leaks on Friday. The team will be established within the Innovation Platform Agency linked to the ministry next month. Some Japanese ministry websites and corporate services have been temporarily suspended as a precautionary measure due to identified vulnerabilities in the commonly used PHP programming language.

Akazawa, in a press conference, elaborated on the role of these ethical hackers, stating that the country's cyber defense system suffers from inherent weaknesses against adversaries. The team's objective is to identify security vulnerabilities in systems with the aim of enhancing the overall security of the industry. The ministry has already raised cybersecurity awareness among approximately 1,000 industry organizations and associations in response to the PHP issue, according to Akazawa.