JETRO Confirms 743 Records Leaked in Website Hack

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the government-backed agency that helps Japanese companies trade and invest abroad, says 743 records of personal information leaked after hackers got into part of its websites. In a notice dated 19 October, it said the data includes company names and the email addresses of company contacts.

The number is small, but the disruption is not. JETRO’s main website has been offline since Saturday 17 October, cutting off a source of overseas trade information for businesses while the agency investigates.

In brief

JETRO says 743 personal data records, including company names and contacts’ email addresses, leaked after unauthorised access to part of its websites.
The access was confirmed as having taken place from Wednesday 14 October, and the website has been suspended since 17 October.
JETRO has not said how the attackers got in, and Kyodo reports it does not know when the site will reopen.

What JETRO has confirmed

According to JETRO’s Japanese notice, it confirmed that unauthorised access to part of its websites had taken place from Wednesday 14 October. To find the cause and stop the damage spreading, it suspended use of the website from Saturday 17 October.

So far, the agency says, the leak of 743 items of personal information has been confirmed. It has already notified the affected companies under Japan’s personal information protection law, telling them what happened and which data items were involved. It is working with security experts to establish the full extent of the damage, find the cause and check the website is safe.

Services and what comes next

JETRO has set up a temporary website so that customers are not disadvantaged during the shutdown. Some services remain available as normal, including online trade and investment consultation requests, its online trade courses, the WorldTariff tariff database and event registrations. Older pages can still be viewed through the National Diet Library’s WARP web archive.

Reopening is the open question. The agency “does not know when it can reopen the website”, Kyodo reported, as published by the Mainichi. Kyodo noted that the site provides overseas economic and trade information and is used to recruit companies for JETRO’s programmes and seminars.

The disclosure came the same day as breach notices from several Japanese companies, including Hankyu Hanshin Department Stores and the email-delivery firm Ymirlink, according to Kyodo. None of the organisations has said the incidents are linked.

Kyodo also reported Trend Micro chief executive Eva Chen’s warning that stolen personal information can be exploited in phishing emails, so the affected companies should watch for suspicious messages to their contacts. The next milestone is JETRO’s return online, and whether its investigation finds any more records.