Japan's data leaks put recovery alongside prevention in cyberattack defenses

White-hat hacker Momoko Aoyama explains password protection and preparing for a breach as a Japanese report counts more than 300 million leaked records.

Channel: TBS NEWS DIG Powered by JNN ·

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【サイバー攻撃】ホワイトハッカーにいろいろ聞きました「銀行のセキュリティは大丈夫？」「スマホは乗っ取られる？」今年の情報漏えい“3億件超”に…防衛策は？【news23】｜TBS NEWS DIG

Things we can learn from the video

Press to jump

0:00Airline and retailer breach reports illustrate how attacks can expose customer information through shared suppliers and payment pages.
1:44GMO reports potential identification leads, while the government requests blocking of an extortion website.
3:03Japanese notes in website code offer a clue, but possible AI generation prevents firm conclusions about their author.
6:24Aoyama explains that white-hat and malicious hackers can use the same technical skills for different purposes.
12:06The panel addresses smartphone hijacking, password management and the importance of multifactor authentication.
13:38Cyber resilience means preparing to limit damage and restore operations rather than relying entirely on preventing breaches.

Stopping every cyberattack is not the only goal. Organizations also need to limit the damage and be ready to restore their systems, white-hat hacker Momoko Aoyama tells a news23 panel examining Japan's expanding series of data breaches.

Japan's TBS NEWS DIG Powered by JNN brings the Hitachi Solutions specialist into the studio after reporting a security company's estimate that personal-information leaks this year have exceeded 329 million records, roughly ten times last year's total. That is a count of records, not distinct people.

The report connects the scale of the problem to familiar businesses. All Nippon Airways is investigating a possible information leak after receiving notice from a reservation-system supplier also used by Japan Airlines. ANA Holdings president Koji Shibata describes cyberattacks as a new risk requiring sustained preparation.

Figure manufacturer Good Smile Company, meanwhile, said credit-card information belonging to about 2,800 customers may have leaked following unauthorized access to its official shop's payment page. According to the report, the information included names, card numbers and security codes; the company said it had emailed affected customers.

Another strand concerns the attack on internet conglomerate GMO Internet Group. The company said information submitted through its reward initiative, together with work by its white-hat team, had produced leads that could help identify the attackers. Those leads were to be passed to police.

The report also says Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications requested blocking of an extortion website. It describes that intervention as highly unusual because of constitutional protections for the secrecy of communications. IIJ technical executive Kiyotaka Domae points to Japanese-language notes hidden in the site's HTML, but cautions that AI could have generated the page: the language alone does not establish who made it.

Asked about the wider surge, Aoyama suggests increasingly capable AI tools may be contributing. She explains that ethical and malicious hackers can possess the same technical abilities; their purposes differ. Her own introduction to the field came through a university professor's invitation framed as joining an Earth-defense force.

The practical discussion reaches smartphone hijacking, password management and multifactor authentication around twelve minutes into the video. Its closing idea is cyber resilience: anticipate an incident, resist it, minimize its consequences and prepare to recover quickly. Aoyama's emphasis is on having that recovery plan before an attack succeeds.