Names and email addresses registered on Himeji City's online procedures portal may have been leaked. The cause was determined to be unauthorised access to an external email distribution service.
Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture, announced on 2 November that information such as names and email addresses registered on its online procedures portal may have been leaked. The incident is reportedly attributable to unauthorised access to the email distribution service linked to the portal.
The email distribution service for the portal is provided by Arara (Tokyo), a subsidiary of IT company Paycloud Holdings. The city is checking through TKC whether information was leaked and, if so, the scale of the leak, but explained that credit card information was not included.
As of 9 p.m. on 2 November, the city had suspended the email distribution function used for notifications such as application completion notices and instructed users to access the portal directly to check their application status.
The city warned of the risk of related phishing emails being sent and cautioned that Himeji City emails would never ask recipients to enter credit card information or provide a PIN.