Japan

A threat group that has attacked a variety of targets including US defense agencies since 2010, has recently zeroed in all efforts on Japanese critical infrastructure. Though they have not yet been "destructive or disruptive," the cyber espionage group has been quietly, persistently lurking within Japan's power, oil/gas, construction, finance, and transportation industries, according to researchers at the Cylance SPEAR Team.

Apple SIM's expansion into Japan was quietly announced on Apple's website on Monday, which now lists au as a partner service alongside AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S., EE in the UK, and GigSky in more than 90 countries.

With KDDI network support now live, Apple has started Apple SIM card sales in its Japanese retail stores, according to the dedicated informational webpage. Prior to today, the card was available at Apple Stores in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the U.S.

Attackers have compromised popular Japanese adult websites in order to distribute a trojan that is primarily targeting customers of two major banks in the country; however, the malware could easily be repurposed for use in the U.S., according to researchers with ESET.

The Aibatook trojan is capable of constantly monitoring browsing activity, modifying visited web pages, redirecting to web pages, and constantly monitoring and exfiltrating information entered into web forms, Joan Calvet, a malware researcher with ESET, told SCMagazine.com in a Wednesday email correspondence.

Japanese police have arrested a 27-year-old man on suspicion of possessing handguns believed to have been created by a 3-D printer.

Police say this is the first time in Japan they have seized guns possibly made with the technology. They have charged the man, a college employee, with hiding 2 plastic handguns last month at his home in Kawasaki, near Tokyo.

Police launched an investigation after the man posted video footage of the guns on the Internet. They seized 5 plastic handguns, and determined that 2 of them could be used to kill. They have not found any live bullets.

It's been a quiet day in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, a large port city on the western coast of central Japan. Like PC users the world over, you've been playing whack-a-mole with update notifications.

This time, it's a piece of free software that you're barely aware of on your computer. Up pops an update notice while you're eating a yummy piece of chocolaty Lotte Ghana left over from the holidays. While you're chewing, you click your mouse, approving the update.

Wanting to gather more information on China, the US National Security Agency (NSA) approached the Japanese government in 2011 to allow it to tap the international fibre-optic cables that traverse the country and carry much of the traffic across East Asia.

Citing a lack of legal framework and personnel, the Japanese government rejected the NSA requests to provide communication data, including internet activity and phone calls, sources told The Japan Times over the weekend.

A small, sophisticated international hacking group was responsible for a widely publicised 2011 spying attack on members of Japan's parliament as well as dozens of previously undisclosed breaches at government agencies and strategic companies in Japan and South Korea, security researchers said.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab believe they have found a squad of hackers for hire, who contract out to governments and possibly businesses, in contrast to recent reports on hacks said to be carried out by full-time government employees.

Through investigation and collaboration between our researchers and engineers, we discovered a malicious online banking Trojan campaign targeting users in Japan, with the campaign itself ongoing since early June of this year. We’ve reported about such incidents in the past, including in our Q1 security roundup – and we believe this latest discovery shows that those previous attacks have been expanded and are a part of this particular campaign.

Police in the Chiba Prefectural zone of Japan have arrested nine people suspected of making nearly $4m by distributing malware that harvested mobile user's contact information and using it for a fake dating website.

The arrests came after a joint operation between the police and Symantec, and the security company reports that the possible ringleader of the group is Masaaki Kagawa, president of IT firm Koei Planning and a semi-professional poker player who has netted over $1.5m in winnings from tournament play over in the last six years.

Yahoo Japan, the country's largest Web portal, said up to 22 million user IDs may have been leaked during a hack that was discovered last week.

The company emphasized that the IDs are already public information, and no passwords or other private data were affected. Yahoo Japan IDs are used along with password to log in to the site, and are often displayed when users leave comments or use its shopping or auction services.