Japanese Targets of Cyber Breaches or Insider Threats

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 09, 2026

Japanese government bureau and major firms experience data breaches

"Data breach incidents are occurring frequently," a contributor writes. "In the past Japanese firms were not targeted by international cybercrime groups. The widely held explanation is that language provided a barrier. This holds true no more. Now bad actors can read Japanese-language documents with the help of machine translation."

"Over the years Japanese firms grew complacent and failed to shore up defenses. Suddenly they are receiving attacks."^{1, 2}

Well, machine translation was widely available in the 1990s, so that explanation might not be entirely convincing. Nowadays it's fashionable to call machine translation "hey hi" (like so many other things).

____

¹ More Japan firms report customer data leaks as unauthorized access widens - The Mainichi

² Cyberattacks against Japanese firms continue, putting millions at risk of identity theft - The Japan Times