Japan announces emergency cybersecurity package after wave of breaches

Japan announced an emergency cybersecurity package on Friday, after what the Associated Press describes as a wave of data breaches at major companies and government agencies.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told a ministerial meeting that a rapid response to potential attacks is essential in the era of AI-generated attacks, and urged government agencies and companies to step up their preparedness. "At this very moment, cases of unauthorized access and data breaches are occurring, causing a major impact on daily lives of the people and corporate activities," she said.

The package is worth 10 billion yen ($63 million). It covers information sharing between the public and private sectors, assistance to affected organisations and recovery from damage.

Specifics in the package:

• The government will expand its ability to access servers used by hackers, a preemptive measure known as "active cyber defense," which was legalized in October.
• Where an incident may challenge national security, a support team drawn from the Defense Ministry, the National Police Agency and the National Cybersecurity Office will be deployed.
• The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will set up a "top gun" team of cybersecurity experts by the end of November, using AI to counter hackers and find weaknesses in network systems, working with technology companies and AI developers in friendly nations.
• A "cyber rescue team" of public and private experts will handle initial responses at companies hit by attacks, and a separate team will help vulnerable companies strengthen their defenses.

The AP report doesn't name the companies and agencies involved, or say how many records were exposed. The related links on the page point to earlier Japanese breaches, including at So-net, Nikkei, the Digital Agency, Nichirei and KDDI, but those are separate incidents and not part of this package's stated trigger.

For defenders outside Japan, the useful detail is the direction of travel: a government putting money into incident response capacity and into reaching affected firms quickly, rather than into new reporting requirements. Whether the teams work as intended is something only the next few incidents will show.