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Japan's Pension System Hacked; 1.25 Million Identification Numbers, Birth Dates, Addresses Compromised
There’s been quite a bit of talk recently about “cyberthreats” to the US. Back in April, Defense Secretary Ash Carter unveiled a new US strategy designed to combat a list of supposed “cyberadversaries” which include (of course) China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. The Pentagon suggested that Washington may use “offensive” cyberattacks if necessary to “disrupt an adversary’s military related networks or infrastructure so that the U.S. military can protect U.S. interests in an area of operations.”
As it turns out, the US did just that five years ago when Homeland Security tried to deploy a computer virus against North Korea’s nuclear program, an effort which ultimately failed due to, as Reuters puts it, “the extreme isolation of [Pyongyang's] communications systems.”
More recently, the US implicated Chinese hacker spies in a scheme purportedly designed to steal US military secrets from Penn State’s engineering department and "Russain crime syndicates" were blamed for an IRS breach.
As far as Washington’s allies are concerned, Japan is onboard with PM Shinzo Abe and President Obama striking a cybersecurity alliance when Abe visited the capital in April. In a speech to Congress, Abe had the following to say about Chinese hacking: “[We cannot] simply allow free riders on intellectual property.”
In the latest cyber drama, we learned on Sunday that Japan Pension Service staff computers were hacked and 1.25 million cases of personal data were compromised in the process. Reuters has the story:
Japan's pension system has been hacked and more than a million cases of personal data leaked, authorities said on Monday, in an embarrassment that revived memories of a scandal that helped topple Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his first term in office.
Japan Pension Service staff computers were improperly accessed by an external email virus, leading to the leak of some 1.25 million cases of personal data, the system's president, Toichiro Mizushima, told a hastily called news conference.
He apologized for the leak, which he said involved combinations of names, identification numbers, birth dates and addresses.
For some, the incident brings back bad memories:
Public outrage over botched record-keeping that left millions of pension premium payments unaccounted for was a major factor in a devastating defeat suffered by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party in a 2007 election for parliament’s upper house.
And a bit more color from The Japan Times:
The data were leaked when agency employees opened an attached file in their email containing a virus.
Japan Pension Service President Toichiro Mizushima apologized for the leak and said affected people will be given new pension ID numbers.
“We feel an extremely grave responsibility over this,” Mizushima told a hastily arranged news conference.
“We will make the utmost efforts not to cause trouble to our customers”..
Mizushima said the fund reported the attacks to the Metropolitan Police Department on May 19. He refused to elaborate on the type of computer virus or whether the attacks came from within Japan or abroad, citing the ongoing police investigation.
Of the 1.25 million cases, some 52,000 involved the theft of pension IDs, names, birth dates and addresses, while another 1.17 million involved the leak of just pension IDs, names and birth dates. In the remaining 31,000 cases, just pension IDs and names were stolen.
We will now await the official announcement wherein Japanese officials will say that their investigation suggests the attack originated in China. Stay tuned.
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How many Wantanabes on that list?
All of them?
Always attack your enemy at their weakest point. In most western societies that would be pensions.
There's nothing like an angry mob of pensioners!
"But I never got my Hoveround!"
Wanna mess things up? Don't pay the pigs.
Oh no... There goes TOKYO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnXaDKvterM
Maybe this was an inside job to see how the public reacts to the news. Then Abe-robots have an excuse to exert greater control in the name of security (and for the children) by simply merging all accounts into one great big happy government account and paying benefits from that account forever (wink, wink).
"Please do not worry."
No. Voters.
Methinks someone is probably about to commit Hara-Kiri.
By "identification numbers" you don't mean like, Social Security numbers do you?...lol.
...and it's gone!
I brame the weathuh..., and Boosh!
Yeah, God forbid we blame FDR or any other fucking socialist for anything ;-)
IDK about you, but I never signed no Soshyll Contrakt
I wanted to return to this subject of "identification cards" to point out something that the "old guard" (people like you, honestann, pods, knukles, myself and many others) have always tried to convey for the benefit of the younguns.
In everything, the Deep State schemes in terms of decades, not days or months.
When the concept of Social Security cards was first introduced there was the very real concern among the thinking public that the card (and the number) would be used for tracking individuals and that eventually, at some point in the future, it would be tied to any & all private financial transactions.
So to decieve the people (of the present, that would be the early 1900's) of the real motivation for the card and the number, the government printed right on the front of the card "Not To Be Used For Identification".
Seems pretty straight forward and the people relented. That instruction is now gone.
How do I know this? Because I was born in 1959 and still have my old card that clearly states on the front "Not To Be Used For Identification".
Now it is a fact of life (or so it seems) that when engaging in private commerce you are routinely asked for this number or to present the card.
So I ask the young idealistic statists who read ZH, look at the front of your card and tell me if you see the words Not To Be Used For Identification ;-)
OK, which Government Employee gets to fall on his/her sword or jump off the building?
Biometrics. Store your Bitcoin in your chip.
Positive ID, every time. Live safe.
Give fiat the finger.
Lighten up, Dudes. ISIS has to get revenue somehow, and Bill Clinton has bills to pay.
I saw it on TV, so it must be truthy.
lol...I can actually envision the asshole taking the money to give a speech in Raqqa for 750k, throw in a confirmed Christian or Yazidi (female) virgin or two and its a lock, no doubt about it.
They could call it the Speech Against Rape at the Oasis or some damned thing instead of Orgy Island.
The progs would go absolutely gaga over it.
Damn that Putin!
Must be all those trolls he has unleashed.
Too much emphasis on 'security' is placed on keeping people 'out' of your system. That works, until it fails -- and it will fail because you ultimately have to make it easy enough for an average user to get into your system. Too little emphasis is placed on audit logs and tracking of what users are actually doing inside your system. If an average user pulls up 10 records per hour and you detect someone hitting 100 per hour then you stop the presses and investigate. If you have massive reports that can be run, then try a two-layer approval, or better yet, limit the number of lines that go out to a terminal or go a printer in an insecure area. These things are not easy to do - but they are the only sure way to stop hackers.
Usually these things are process problems. Ever wonder why it's always 1.6MM or some lesser number than all? Because it's usually some analyst who downloaded the records locally to run an analysis. Then they open a virus, and a subset gets released.
Good one guys. That was a good one.
Does Amazon ship to North Korea????
Will a person that looks like two blue ovals be able to use them for ID at Target?