Japan learns that its cybersecurity agency has been compromised nine months after it was established
The United States and China are leading the way in designing systems to combat cybercrime, and Japan doesn’t want to be left behind. Japan created its own national cybersecurity center, but it ended up becoming another victim of a massive hack.
Japan has been hit by a cyberattack that has affected other countries, including the United States and China. Even the newly established National Cyber Security Center has been unable to escape the hackers.
The Asian nation created the Cabinet Cyber Security Center with the aim of improving the cybersecurity of companies and organizations operating in Japan. Not only did this strategy not work, it had the opposite effect.
Japan sought to protect critical government infrastructure and its major corporations. Just nine months after its creation, the Cabinet Office Cybersecurity Center discovered an unauthorized user had entered.
A report in the Financial Times suggests the hack may have been in place since the organization was founded. The hacker gained access to the agency’s internal email system, but the National Security Agency didn’t discover it until nine months later.
- The operation to hack China's cybersecurity agency has begun.
China has a long history of hacking government agencies around the world. In January, the United States offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Guan Tianfeng, a Chinese hacker who infected 81,000 American computers, making him one of the world’s most wanted.
Japan was China’s latest victim. Not only did the country fail to protect user data, it ended up exposing the personal information of millions of citizens.
Japan has tried to keep the origin of the hackers secret, although the United States has not hesitated to blame China. It was the US agencies themselves that alerted the Asian country to a possible glitch in its messaging system, which triggered all the NSC alerts.
Chinese hackers have been able to access information at Japan's Cabinet Office Cybersecurity Center for nine months since the agency began operating, U.S. cybersecurity experts said.
Cybercriminals have been able to access information about government agencies and companies operating in the country for months. Japan says the security breach has been fixed and it has strengthened its protection system to prevent such attacks in the future.