ID :
276581
Fri, 03/01/2013 - 00:43
Auther :

1,009 Targeted Cyberattacks Hit Japanese Entities in 2012

Tokyo, Feb. 28 (Jiji Press)--A total of 1,009 targeted e-mail cyberattacks hit Japanese companies and other institutions last year, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The NPA found this after analyzing information collected from some 4,900 companies and research organizations in the fields of defense and advanced technologies. Some cases led to leaks of information, according to the NPA. Such attacks are becoming ever more sophisticated, the NPA warned, noting novel cases in which attackers exchange ordinary e-mail messages not including viruses with target entities before sending messages with viruses. This particular style of attack was first seen in November last year and is still being used, the agency said. In a typical case, an attacker contacts a target organization, pretending to be a whistle-blower or job applicant. If the organization replies, the attacker then sends another e-mail with a virus contained in an attached file titled "Exposure Report" or "Resume." Antivirus software was not able to detect such viruses because the data were compressed and password-protected, the NPA said. In one case, an attacker sent an e-mail message announcing the schedule of an inaugural press conference by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe soon after the change of government late last December. Amid heightened tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, e-mail messages were sent out by attackers pretending to be government officials. Separately, a series of hacker attacks hit the Web sites of government agencies and courts last year, according to the NPA. Two of them appear to have been carried out by Anonymous, an international group of hackers, while eight are believed to have been related to the friction between Japan and China. The agency believes that most of the cyberattacks were conducted from abroad. But it was unable to identify any suspect because of the difficulty for the Japanese police to investigate cybercrimes by foreign-based attackers. The agency also said that users of file-sharing software decreased sharply in October last year, when Japan implemented the revised copyright law to punish those downloading illegal data files, such as copies of movies, while knowing that these are unauthorized content. In the month, the daily number of personal computers using file-sharing software averaged 68,864, down 33 pct from the preceding month. The revised law was enacted in June last year. Before the revision, only those posting illegal content were subject to punishment. END

X