Japan: Japanese companies are offering compensation to customers following a wave of cyberattacks that have disrupted internet services and raised concerns about economic stability.
GMO Internet Group, a leading provider of online financial services, said it would compensate customers for losses caused by unauthorised access following a cyberattack on its foreign exchange trading service. All customers would also receive 5,000 yen as a gesture of goodwill, chief executive Masatoshi Kumagai said in a blog post on Sunday.
Shares in GMO, which had a market value of $2.6 billion at Friday's close, fell nearly 16 per cent on Monday to a four-month low, while Tokyo's benchmark index, TOPIX, rose 0.2 per cent.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the government planned to compile an emergency package of measures to counter cyberattacks by next week.
On Friday, the government announced plans to establish a team that would simulate cyberattacks using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify weaknesses in technology systems. The move came as organisations worked to contain risks linked to vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language, which underpins much of the internet.
More broadly, Japanese companies are facing mounting disruption from cyberattacks. Industry experts say AI is helping automate tasks ranging from scanning software for vulnerabilities to creating phishing campaigns, making cybercrime faster, cheaper and harder to detect.
Government and company websites in Japan, Europe and elsewhere went offline last week after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in PHP prompted millions of hacking attempts.
The scale of the recent attacks has exposed weaknesses in Japanese companies' ability to protect large volumes of customer data and raised concerns about increasing costs to strengthen cybersecurity defences.
Japan recorded 723 cybersecurity incidents through 20 October, according to data from TrendAI, a unit of cybersecurity company Trend Micro. The figure exceeded the annual totals recorded in both 2025 and 2024.