This weekend, the US pledged to help beef up Japan’s cyber defense. Two days later, The Japan Times is reporting that 1.25 million sets of personal data from its pension system were leaked in a huge cyberattack.


The $1.1 trillion Japan Pension Service said Monday that an employee opened an emailed virus, triggering the massive breach. (A reminder: don’t open suspicious attachments, friends!) Over a million people’s names, birth dates, addresses, or pension IDs have been compromised.

The security partnership announced over the weekend has particular goals: to bolster defenses against cyberattacks on Japan’s military bases and infrastructure, like power grids. Japan’s military cyber defense personnel only hits 90 members, a number dwarfed by the Pentagon’s 6,000.


But institutions like the Japan Pension Service obviously need protection, too—Japan’s a rapidly aging country whose pension fund is the biggest in the world.

Meanwhile, the US barely has control over its own cybersecurity. Some of 2015’s Greatest Cyberattack Hits so far include stolen tax returns from the IRS and a huge leak of Anthem customers’ personal info.

[The Japan Times and AFP]

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