We haven’t quite reached the cyber apocalypse that artificial intelligence companies have warned their technology could unleash on the world, but we’re getting uncomfortably close to a catastrophe on a national scale. According to a report from the Financial Times, Japan is being hammered by cyberattacks, prompting regulators to search for ways to protect financial institutions from potentially devastating disruptions and leading the country to declare “a state of emergency in cyberspace.”
Per the report, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party recently called an emergency meeting of its National Cybersecurity Office to address a slew of cyberattacks that have hit some of the nation’s key companies. A recent report from Kyodo News, citing Japan’s National Police Agency, said that at least 53 companies in the country have been hit by a ransomware attack.
While the specific victims of the attack have not been disclosed by authorities, they reportedly include manufacturing firms, construction companies, hospitals, and schools. Two companies that did confirm they were hacked, Japanese second-hand goods retailer Bookoff Group and rail operator East Japan Railway Company, confirmed they were hacked and revealed that over 6 million records of customer information may have been compromised.
The attacks are impacting the country beyond just their online systems, it seems. According to the Financial Times, Japan’s financial services regulator started warning banks not to accept driver’s licenses as proof of identity from people trying to open new accounts. That warning comes after Japanese car rental brand Times Car was hacked and had a trove of digital images of IDs stolen.
It’s difficult to separate this wave of attacks from the proliferation of AI, which has lowered the barriers to entry for hackers looking to target potential victims. But Japan appears to be a particularly target-rich environment, with or without AI. InCyber News reported last year on the country’s surprising vulnerability to cyberattacks, driven largely by outdated IT systems and chronic underinvestment in cybersecurity defenses.
Japan also isn’t alone in being targeted at the moment. Its neighbor South Korea is also reportedly under a barrage of attacks, with several financial institutions and churches falling victim to cyber strikes, per Reuters. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike published a report claiming that those offensives were likely performed by a Chinese-developed AI agent using Anthropic’s Claude Code.
