Japan faces massive wave of personal data breaches

Japan is experiencing a significant surge in personal data breaches, with approximately 73 million records compromised between September and October 2024. Major incidents include leaks at Yakiniku King (over 10 million records), Gyazo (approximately 23.6 million records), and various other entities such as Bookoff, Lawson, and Daiwa Securities.

In a recent specific incident, Sony Network Communications reported that unauthorized access to its So-net database potentially exposed up to 2.58 million pieces of personal information. This includes names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Notably, approximately 54,401 email addresses had their sending and receiving passwords compromised, prompting the company to force password resets for affected users to prevent unauthorized email access.

The scale of these breaches has prompted action from the Japanese government. Minister Shunji Furukawa has described the situation as “extremely urgent,” and both the Personal Information Protection Commission and JPCERT/CC have issued warnings to the public.