Personal Info of 4.38 M. Customers Leaked at Aflac Japan

Tokyo, June 30 (Jiji Press)–Aflac Life Insurance Japan Ltd. said Tuesday that unauthorized access to its customer portal site and other systems resulted in the leak of personal information of about 4.38 million customers, including their names, addresses, and phone numbers. For about 230,000 of these customers, information about premium payment accounts was also compromised. At this point, however, no misuse of such information has been confirmed. Aflac Life Insurance Japan detected an abnormality Thursday as the system load increased following a surge in access traffic, company officials said. An investigation found multiple unauthorized access attempts were made between June 15 and Thursday. The company has shut down related systems and plans to restart them once it has confirmed their safety. It has already reported the matter to the Financial Services Agency and the police. The company will continue to probe the incident while working to restore the affected systems as soon as possible. In a statement issued Tuesday, the company said it apologizes for any inconvenience and anxiety caused by the incident. It added that it will promptly investigate the cause and take measures to prevent a recurrence in cooperation with external specialized institutions. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]