Japan Digital Agency says 246,000 records may have leaked in cyberattack

Japan’s Digital Agency has disclosed a cyberattack on a government network that may have exposed personal information belonging to approximately 246,000 public servants, contractors and other people involved in government work. Summary Japan’s Digital Agency said roughly 246,000 personal records may have leaked after an attacker exploited a VPN vulnerability. The affected data included around 236,000 names, 231,000 email addresses and 94,000 phone numbers belonging mainly to public servants and government contractors. Officials detected large scale file access through a maintenance account on June 25 and confirmed the unauthorized intrusion on July 9. The agency said no misuse of the potentially exposed information has been confirmed and My Number IDs, bank details and pension numbers were not affected. The Digital Agency said on Sept. 11 that an investigation into its Government Solution Service, or GSS, found that an outside attacker exploited a vulnerability in a virtual private network device and gained unauthorized access to files containing personal data. The agency first detected unusual activity on June 25, when a maintenance and operations account was used to access a larg...