Personal Info Possibly Compromised at Japan’s Digital Agency

Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Digital Agency said Friday that about 246,000 sets of personal information, including the names and email addresses of government employees, may have been compromised through the unauthorized access of a network system operated by the agency. So far, no secondary damage such as the misuse of the possibly breached personal information has been confirmed. The unauthorized access occurred on the Government Solution Service, a system commonly used by government ministries and agencies. The agency said it detected suspicious access from the account of a system maintenance administrator on June 25. It then began investigating the incident and found on July 9 that an external third party had repeated unauthorized access since around late May. “We take it seriously that the incident occurred despite our operations under multi-layered security measures and a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year surveillance system,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said at a press conference, adding that the agency would work to prevent a recurrence. The possible information breach affects some 189,000 government employees and around 57,000 private-sector workers involved in government duties. The information included their addresses and phone numbers, but not My Number personal identification numbers or bank account information. The Digital Agency determined that the cyberattack exploited a vulnerability in virtual private network equipment to access the system remotely. The agency was aware of the vulnerability but yet to apply a patch. Following the possible information breach, the agency warned of emails or phone calls from people posing as the agency. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]