The Defense Ministry has said it will create in fiscal 2013 a special defense force with about 100 members to fight cyber-attacks.
The ministry on Friday announced the nation's first defense guidelines on cyber-attacks, which specify Japan could invoke its right to self-defense if a cyber-attack occurs as part of an armed offensive strike.
A computer glitch has caused foreign residents in Japan to receive their new residence cards without the electronic signature authorized by the country's justice minister.
The glitch was discovered on Monday, which was the first day the Immigration Bureau began issuing IDs to replace alien registration cards, the Japan Times reported Wednesday. Although the error was not fixed on Tuesday, immigration officers nationwide continued to issue the cards, Eriko Tanizawa, a spokesperson for the justice bureau told the news site.
The international hackers group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber-attacks against Japanese government websites in an operation apparently triggered by the group's displeasure with the recent introduction of stiffer punishments for illegal downloads.
The Finance Ministry suspended access to part of its website after it apparently was illegally accessed Tuesday, and the Supreme Court's website also suffered disruptions, according to government sources.
Six men including three IT executives have been arrested in Tokyo in connection with an Android malware scam which netted them over 20 million yen (£160,740).
Japan’s first arrests for the crime of distributing a smartphone virus came after over 9,000 people downloaded malware disguised as an application designed to play videos, according to the Daily Yomiuri.
Despite being hailed for its techno-innovation, Japan is a little more traditional than many people think – over half of homes apparently still contain fax machines.
The country’s businesses and government organisations continue to rely on the legacy technology to transmit important documents, while 59 per cent of households feature a clunky paper-muncher, according to a Washington Post article which cited Cabinet Office stats.
Nissan said it found malicious software on its network that stole employee user IDs and hashed passwords, but said no personal information or e-mails appeared to have been compromised.
The car company released a statement on April 20, one week after the intrusion was detected. Jeff Kuhlman, Nissan's head of global communications, said on Thursday that Nissan delayed disclosing the breach sooner in order to cleanse its network of the malicious software and prevent tipping off the hackers.
A Japanese bank and National police agency have deployed voice recognition technology capable of catching up phishing scams almost every time.
In development since 2009, the technology by Fujitsu and Nagoya University is claimed to be a world's first, with researchers saying it is capable of analysing phone conversations to “detect situations in which one party might 'over trust' the other party”.
Nintendo said Monday that it has sold 5 million 3DS handheld game consoles in Japan, which it says makes the device the fastest-selling game platform ever in the country.
The Kyoto-based firm said the console reached the landmark Sunday, less than a year after its launch on Feb. 26, 2011. It said the number was based on estimates from data it obtained directly from its domestic distributors.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense has revealed its latest project to tackle hacking: a ’seek and destroy’ virus designed to track and disable the source of cyber-attacks.
The project, launched in 2008, cost $2.3 million over three years. Several companies competed for the contract, but Fujitsu was eventually commissioned to develop the new ‘cyberweapon’.
Japanese game developer Square Enix said on Thursday that servers containing data on 1.8 million customers had been hacked, but said the extent of the damage was not yet known.
The producer of hit titles such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest pulled down the Square Enix Members service shortly after discovering evidence of an intruder, said a spokeswoman.
