Amid a succession of data breaches targeting Japanese companies, NICT (the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) executive director Moriai Shiho (盛合 志帆) issued urgent recommendations on the nature of the latest attack methods and effective countermeasures. Some have also pointed out that the attacks have only just begun, bringing the reality of personal information theft into focus.
The number of cyberattacks targeting Japanese companies is increasing, and the severity of data breaches has been highlighted. Moriai Shiho (盛合 志帆) offered her views on the nature of the latest attack methods and how vulnerabilities are exploited.
The main objective of attackers is to obtain money. They may steal personal information to demand a ransom, sell it or use it in other attacks. Personal information includes addresses, names and credit card details.
One contributing factor is that advances in AI have improved the efficiency of information gathering, program analysis and vulnerability discovery, lowering the barriers to launching cyberattacks.
Recently, rather than limiting their attacks to specific information on e-commerce sites, attackers have tended to target web systems that handle personal information indiscriminately. The reuse of attack methods has also been highlighted.