More Japanese firms hit by large-scale data breaches

According to The Japan Times, JR East said that about 6.09 million customer accounts may have been compromised, while JR Kyushu said about 1.3 million customer accounts may have been compromised.[2] The railways said both were a result of a ransomware attack on IDC Frontier, a cloud services subsidiary of SoftBank[2], the paper reports.The Japan Times reports that Bookoff Group Holdings said its subsidiary responsible for managing membership data had suffered unauthorized access, possibly resulting in a data breach affecting up to 6.43 million customers.[2]According to Jiji Press, Big Echo karaoke operator Daiichikosho said personal information on about 8.72 million customers may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to a system managed by an external contractor.[1]The Japan Times reports that Adventure Inc., the operator of the Skyticket travel booking website, reported a potential breach involving about 14.64 million sets of personal in[2]formation.Jiji Press reports that Bookoff and Daiichikosho said the leaked information includes names, date of birth, email addresses and phone numbers.[3] According to Jiji, the two firms warned customers of possible fraud emails and phone calls[3], although they said no misuse had been confirmed.Earlier in the week, The Japan Times quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara as saying the government was "analyzing the methods and trends of the attacks"[4].Economy.ac cites Trend Micro as saying Japanese companies and local governments disclosed 600 incidents involving unauthorized access and other security breaches between the start of the year and the end of September[5], already more than last year's full-year total of 593.