Japanese Government Hacked, Important Files Stolen

Government agencies in Japan, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Narita Airport, were impacted after a cyber attack was detected on Monday, May 24th. Hackers gained access to files stored on ProjectWEB, an enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

ProjectWEB is owned by Fujitsu, a Japanese information and communications tech company. The platform has been temporarily taken down as the company investigates the data breach.

Although not much is currently known about the motives or identity of the hackers, reports estimate that documents containing more than 76,000 email addresses were stolen. Local officials have yet to confirm these reports. A separate report from NHK states that air traffic control data was also taken from the Narita Airport.

Attacks targeting essential entities worldwide have been increasing in number as of late. We’ve seen this recently in the United States with the Colonial Pipeline hack, which caused stress for many on the east coast as gas prices started to increase.

This cybersecurity incident in Japan follows a similar strain of attacks on Japanese government agencies earlier this year, where FileZen file-sharing servers made by Soiton were targeted.

While not much is known about how much sensitive information these attackers managed to get a hold of, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that malicious groups will stop at nothing to compromise and steal data. Worst of all is the fixation on compromising organizations that are necessary to a country’s infrastructure.

If you’re looking to beef up your cyber security protection, make sure to utilize proper safety measures. Two-factor authentication, password management systems, and automated monitoring that can help alert you in the event of a breach are all ways to safeguard yourself and your business from harm.