Japanese companies offer compensation as cyberattacks hit economy
GMO Internet Group will compensate customers for cyberattack losses and give all customers ¥5,000, while Park24 will pay customers ¥3,000 each following a personal data breach.
Japan saw a rise in cybersecurity incidents, with 723 recorded incidents in the year up to October 20, surpassing the totals from 2025 and 2024, according to TrendAI data. Japanese companies are now offering compensation to users following a series of cyberattacks that have disrupted internet services and raised concerns about economic stability.
GMO Internet Group, a major provider of online financial services, announced it would compensate customers for losses resulting from unauthorized access and provide a token ¥5,000 ($32) as goodwill following a cyberattack on its foreign exchange trading service. CEO Masatoshi Kumagai stated that all customers would receive the compensation gesture.
The internet itself is starting to break down, Kumagai said, as the country prepares to establish a team to simulate cyberattacks using AI to identify vulnerabilities in technology systems. Organizations are scrambling to mitigate risks posed by PHP programming language flaws that underpin much of the internet. AI is now being utilized to automate tasks such as scanning for software vulnerabilities and crafting phishing campaigns, making cybercrime faster, cheaper, and harder to detect.
The scale of recent cyberattacks has exposed weaknesses in Japan's ability to protect customer data, potentially leading to substantial additional costs to bolster defenses.
Written by urgent.news from Free Malaysia Today's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
