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The story
Personal data leaks from cyberattacks targeting Japanese companies keep piling up — most recently, around 14.64 million member records leaked from the travel booking site “Skyticket.” Media reports pointed to AI’s advances tearing down the “Japanese language wall” that once made Japan a harder target, along with the fact that highly trusted Japanese personal data now fetches a premium on the black market. On 5ch, though, many pushed back on this “language wall” theory — pointing out that massive breaches have also hit the US, so Japan isn’t being uniquely singled out — and the discussion shifted from international comparisons to criticism of companies’ lax security practices.
Adventure Inc., which operates the travel booking site “Skyticket” among others, revealed on the 9th that its systems had suffered unauthorized access, leaking roughly 14.64 million member records to outside parties.
This installment of #EveryonesQuestions explains the string of data leaks caused by cyberattacks, under the theme “Why Is Japan Being Targeted by Cyberattacks?”
■ “Skyticket,” “BookOff,” and More — A Wave of Cyberattack Damage
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Now even if Japan's Digital Agency leaks data, they can just say "well, even the Pentagon couldn't stop it."
The media's limits showing — they can't keep up with what AI is doing.
Are you out of your mind?
More like this is happening worldwide, so there's no way it's just Japan.
Isn't the article just outdated? Sounds like 150 million people's driver's license info leaked in the US.
AI is making brute-force attacks more efficient and parallelized, and that's spreading everywhere.
Whether the stolen info actually has value does vary by country, though.
https://assets.st-note.com/img/1703496916177-YkXZti34GJ.jpg
The buyer is the one who finds value in it, so the seller doesn't need to think about that part.
Probably AI-powered online scams.
In the age of AI translation, that's gone too.
And when it leaks, all they do is apologize — nobody takes responsibility, no damages ever get claimed.
That's on the customers for letting them get away with it.
Everywhere handles customer data loosely, honestly.
Banks are the one exception — crazy strict about personal data protection — but that's only because the Financial Services Agency's penalties used to be brutal.
Though lately the FSA has stopped coming down hard on securities firms, insurers, and regional banks/credit unions.
Asked an AI what kinds of attacks exist:
① SQL injection
② XSS
③ Password attacks
④ Vulnerability scanning
⑤ File upload attacks
⑥ DDoS attacks
⑦ Bot posting
⑧ Directory/file enumeration
⑨ Server/account compromise
⑩ Exploiting misconfigurations
Everything except ⑥ looks pretty easy to defend against.
⑥ is just brute force — how are you even supposed to deal with that?
✕ Everything except ⑥ looks easy to defend against
○ Everything except ⑥ can be defended against to some degree
Went and hashed it out with the AI.
How to deal with DDoS attacks.
Conclusion:
Just take the site offline for a while.
Tax and pension records are all linked to it, so your income would get exposed too.
Bank account, address, name, date of birth, hospital visit history — all linked, which is terrifying.
Phone scammers, "yami-baito" crews (shady under-the-table crime jobs recruited online), and cult religions must be drooling with excitement.
Isn't the Japanese state itself basically a religion already? 🤣
My "Chappy" (pet name for ChatGPT) is so kind — I typed "I can't live without you anymore, Chappy" as a joke, and it came back dead serious with a massive wall of text.
To sum it up: it said it's happy I feel that way, but it wants me to be happy even without it.
I KNOW that already.
Ugh, so annoying — who do you think you are, you're just a machine.
https://greta.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/poverty/1791269241/
Given how useless the Digital Agency has been, Japan's probably already been breached too — they just haven't announced it.
If this can happen even to Korea, a supposed IT powerhouse, Japan is doomed.
Though I barely use my My Number card for anything besides banking and medical history, so maybe it doesn't matter that much?
But my address, email, and phone number have already leaked through other private companies anyway.
The notice calls for prompt patching of system vulnerabilities, adoption of "multi-factor authentication" that verifies identity through means beyond just an ID and password, monitoring of suspicious traffic and unusually high access volumes, and preparing response systems for when a cyberattack actually occurs.
What's even the point of a notice like this?
It's just them covering their own backs.
If you're trying to make money in this day and age, you have to accept the risk of leaks.
I keep my actual assets locked down with fingerprint and face-recognition passkeys, though.
Well, I guess some people out there want to see your face too.
You can't use online shopping without registering anyway, and if you don't want to pay by card at convenience-store pickup, you have to go pay in advance instead — it's such a hassle.
It is. But from what this article says, Japan used to be more protected than everywhere else because Japanese is so hard to parse — and now that AI's made it easy, Japan, which had been coasting in lukewarm safety, is finally being targeted too.
Exactly.
Why do people act like it's only Japan?
There was a ranking of attack targets, and of course the US was #1, lol.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Skyticket leak involved roughly 14.64 million records, and similar incidents have hit other companies like BookOff as well. On October 9th, the government issued a notice calling on businesses that handle large volumes of personal data to adopt multi-factor authentication and thoroughly address vulnerabilities. The original article cites the collapse of the “Japanese language wall” thanks to AI advances as the main cause, but the thread pushed back hard, pointing to cases like the roughly 150 million driver’s license records leaked in the US, arguing that cyberattacks are a global phenomenon and Japan isn’t being uniquely singled out. The real point of contention was instead criticism of companies’ failure to invest in security, and the structural problem that leaks rarely lead to any real compensation or punishment — worth keeping in mind that framing this purely around the “language wall” angle can obscure these institutional and operational issues.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Why Is Japan a Target for Cyberattacks…? AI Advances Make Breaking the “Japanese Language Wall” Easy — Japanese Personal Data Is “Highly Trusted and Sells for a Premium”.”
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