A sense of crisis is growing in Japan as AI-enabled cyberattacks keep occurring, hitting companies ranging from securities firms to delivery operators.

Bloomberg reported that the Japanese government said on Oct. 28 that an official website for power and gas trading information was hacked. A few days earlier, hackers claimed they had publicly disclosed a large volume of customer information from foreign exchange trading platform GMO Internet Group. Last week, a vulnerability in the PHP programming language was revealed, prompting Mizuho Financial Group and others to take emergency measures.

According to the Macnica Security Research Center, at least 81 attacks have been reported in Japan since July. Nearly one third of attacks over the past three years were concentrated in this period. Yutaka Sejiyama (세지야마 유타카), deputy head of the Macnica Security Research Center, said, "Hackers are indiscriminately attacking public web systems that handle personal information."

Tom Kellermann (톰 켈러만), vice president at Trend AI, believes Russian-speaking criminal groups such as LockBit and Qilin are behind many of the attacks.

Some are suspected of working with North Korean hackers. Experts said criminal groups are finding it easier to overcome Japan's ageing infrastructure and language barriers thanks to AI agents and open-source hacking tools. A Chinese-developed AI tool for defence checks called Artex was also linked to multiple attacks.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (다카이치 사나에) made cybersecurity a national priority last summer. Japan is shifting away from responding after incidents to monitoring telecommunications traffic to block threats in advance. It has also lifted legal restrictions that had prevented government monitoring of communications. Motohiro Tsuchiya (쓰치야 모토히로), a professor at Keio University, said, "Japan is far weaker than other G7 countries." Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara (기하라 미노루) said on Oct. 29 it was urgent to secure advanced security personnel.