Japanese companies compensate users as cyberattacks buffet economy

Japanese companies are moving to pay compensation to users following waves of cyberattacks that have disrupted internet services and raised concerns about economic stability. GMO Internet Group, a leading provider of online financial services, said customers would be compensated for losses stemming from unauthorised access following a cyberattack on its ‌foreign exchange trading service, and all customers would receive 5,000 yen ($32) as a gesture of goodwill, CEO Masatoshi Kumagai said in a blog post on Sunday.

"The internet itself is now starting to break down," said Kumagai, whose sprawling group includes internet infrastructure and cryptocurrency trading. Japan said on Friday it would set up a team to simulate cyberattacks using AI to identify weaknesses in technology systems as organisations scrambled to curtail risks from flaws in the ‌PHP programming language that underpins much of the internet.

More broadly, Japanese companies are being roiled by attacks with experts saying AI is helping automate tasks from scanning for software vulnerabilities to crafting phishing ‌campaigns, making cybercrime faster, cheaper and harder to detect. "The internet is increasingly being transformed into a tool that malicious actors use to threaten and rob people," said Kumagai.

Shares of GMO, which had a market value of $2.6 billion as of Friday's close, slumped almost 16% to a four-month low against a 0.2% rise in Tokyo's benchmark index. Government and company websites in Japan, Europe and elsewhere went offline last week after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language prompted millions of hacking attempts.

CALL ON JAPAN TO STEP ⁠UP CYBERDEFENCE Kumagai ​has urged the Japanese government to apply cyberdefence measures in ⁠response to the cyberattack, after the introduction of a cyberdefence system this month.

The system could involve steps such as attacking hostile servers to neutralise threats. "Now is the time for the public and private sectors to work together to protect Japan," wrote Kumagai.

GMO ⁠said it received a demand for money from a party believed to be behind the attack, along with a threat to disclose company and customer information if it did not comply. GMO said it would not comply with the ​demand and would respond to the incident in coordination with police and other authorities. It did not mention any connection to PHP flaws.

The company, which will provide a free alternative service to ⁠its customers for six months, said it could not currently calculate the impact on earnings from the goodwill payments and compensation for losses. White-hat hackers working for the company had identified security issues but the depth and speed of the response were insufficient, Kumagai wrote.

CUSTOMER DATA ⁠PROTECTION ​WEAKNESSES The scale of recent cyberattacks has exposed weaknesses in Japanese companies' ability to protect their wealth of customer data and raised the prospect of surging costs to beef up defences.

"Companies already have standard security measures in place, so if they want to strengthen them further, there is a possibility that the additional cost burden could be quite substantial," said Shoichi Arisawa, an analyst at IwaiCosmo Securities. There have been 723 cybersecurity ⁠incidents in the year to October 20, according to data from TrendAI, exceeding the annual totals in 2025 and 2024.

"Reports may reflect both the threats organizations face and greater visibility into incidents that would previously ⁠have gone undetected, been underinvestigated, or remained undisclosed," said Satoshi ⁠Nagano, president of cybersecurity firm ESET Japan. Park24, which operates the Times car-sharing service, said on Friday it would make 3,000-yen payments to customers following a personal data breach last month.

The company said it would no longer retain identity document images after completing registration verification and expects to book an extraordinary loss of 5.5 ‌billion yen due to responses to the ‌attack and compensation payments. ($1 = 156.8100 yen)