A core member of the international hacker group Qilin has been detained in Japan, it emerged, amid warnings over a series of cyberattacks on companies and the expansion of attacks using AI.
In a series of cyberattacks on companies, approximately 15 million incidents were confirmed in October alone. Up to approximately 940,000 records, including names and telephone numbers, were leaked from a survey website operated by GMO Research & AI, and cases were also reported in which points worth approximately ¥3 million were fraudulently exchanged. Information leaks at MrMax, Citizen Watch and Daiwa Securities Group were announced, and the scale of personal information leaks is expanding overall. Osaka Metropolitan University also reported a case in which classes were cancelled because of the impact of a major disruption.
Experts also said that the use of AI was one factor behind the sharp increase in cyberattacks, pointing out that generative AI could improve efficiency and enable a substantial increase in the number of attacks launched in a single day. Against this backdrop, it was reported that a core member of the global hacker group Qilin had been detained in Japan.