US and Japan Agree to Cooperate on Preventing Cyberattacks

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi have agreed to enhance U.S.-Japan cooperation on cybersecurity during a meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) defense chiefs’ summit on the Philippine island of Cebu on Wednesday, Oct. 28.

“Against the backdrop of a series of malicious cyberactivities — including large-scale leaks of personal information — both domestically and internationally, the two defense chiefs agreed to continue strengthening cooperation and coordination to prevent such activities from having a serious impact on the lives of citizens, economic activities, and, ultimately, the security of both nations,” Japan’s Defense Ministry said in a readout of the meeting, according to The Japan Times.

Japan has recently faced several cyberattacks. On Oct. 20, GMO Internet Group, a major Japanese technology and internet services conglomerate, detected malicious programs installed in some customer server environments within its Onamae.com Desktop Cloud service.

The cloud service provides virtual desktops, allowing customers to access a Windows desktop hosted on a remote server over the internet. In other words, users can rent computing resources hosted in a data center and access them remotely.

GMO found that information stored on the compromised servers might have been viewed or transferred outside the company, according to a company statement released on Oct. 21.

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“At this time, we have not confirmed any leakage of customers’ personal information entrusted to us, nor any misuse of information that may have been viewed. We do not retain payment information, including credit card information,” GMO said.

GMO’s shares, which were valued at $2.6 billion as of the market close on Oct. 23, fell nearly 16% on Monday (Oct. 26) to a four-month low, while Tokyo’s benchmark index rose 0.2%. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that GMO would compensate users affected by the incident.