Japanese companies face growing wave of cyberattacks

For years, the Japanese language was a defence against hacking in and of itself, observers say. But no more, as artificial intelligence is helping hackers exploit long-standing security weaknesses.

A ransomware attack on IDC Frontier, a Japanese cloud hosting and data centre services provider, paralysed systems used by 495 companies and local authorities in the country.

Those affected included railway operator JR East, which confirmed that more than 6 million customer accounts had been compromised, and used book retailer BookOff, which reported a data leak affecting 6.43 million members.