"I'm Scared": Japan Facing Unprecedented Paralysis Amid Suspected Cyberattacks Linked to China

Japan is currently grappling with a surge in personal data leakage incidents.

With cases exceeding 40 million among private companies this month alone—centering on travel reservation platforms, secondhand trading services, and convenience stores—the damage is now expanding to public services and medical facilities.

This is a brokerage site that allows users to receive regional specialties as a return gift when making donations through the Furusato Nazeki (hometown tax donation) program.

Upon accessing the site, a notice appears stating that "services are temporarily suspended while an investigation is underway."

The service was provisionally halted after traces of hacking were discovered.

[Site User: "I'm scared. There have been a lot of (hacking incidents) lately. There is so much information to enter, like credit card and account details...."]

A fertility clinic in Tokyo.

The reception terminals have stopped working, and staff are now processing check-ins manually one by one.

[Clinic Staff: "Staff have to check each application form individually and call patients manually, which has increased the workload and is very inefficient."]

The system for calling patients into consultation rooms has also shut down, forcing staff to call out patients' names directly.

[Clinic Staff: "Patient with registration number 00, please come in."]

At-Link, a service used by this clinic for reservations and check-ins, was hacked, prompting the suspension of all related services to prevent further damage.

It has been raised as a possibility that information from up to 787 medical institutions using this service may have been leaked.

Amid the spreading damage, investigation results have emerged showing that a Chinese-made AI penetration testing tool called Artext was utilized in some of the attacks.

According to a recent analysis by the information security subsidiary of Japanese IT firm GMO Internet Group, which identified and analyzed six servers used to attack Japanese companies over the past month, traces of Artext were found in all of them.

Artext allows multiple AI agents to link up and automatically identify vulnerabilities in systems. It was recently used in hacking attacks against South Korean financial institutions, and its public release was suspended after sparking controversy.

While it has not been determined whether the perpetrators are Chinese, vigilance against hacking originating from China is growing.

The Japanese government plans to recommend starting next year that financial and medical institutions handling critical personal data use government-certified data centers, with Japanese media interpreting this as a measure to effectively exclude Chinese companies.

(Reported by Moon Jun-mo | Produced by Lee Seyoung | Camera Cooperative: Moon Hyun-jin | Video Edited by Kim Jong-tae | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.