Cyberattacks hit Japanese firms exposing millions of records

Japanese industry minister Ryosei Akazawa announced on Friday the formation of a cybersecurity team to combat recent waves of unauthorized access and data leaks. The team, specializing in ethical hacking, will be established within the Innovation Platform Agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry next month. In response to vulnerabilities in the widely used PHP programming language, some Japanese ministry web pages and corporate services have been partially suspended as a preventive measure.

Akazawa emphasized the country's systematic weakness in cyber defense against aggressors, stating that the team will identify security vulnerabilities in systems to strengthen overall security. The ministry has been raising awareness of cybersecurity through around 1,000 industry organizations and associations to address the PHP problem.

Additionally, disaster information services firm Arcadia Inc reported on Friday that approximately 1.42 million suspicious emails had been sent from its system due to cyberattacks. Arcadia President Seiichi Tenpaku expressed deep regret over the damage to the company's trust and social responsibility during a press conference in Tokyo.

Following the detection of unauthorized access to its computer system on October 13, the Osaka Prefecture-based company suspended its services. Its server operation was restored two days later, but up to 3.13 million email addresses may have been leaked, according to the company.