Capcom Co., an Osaka-based major game software maker, announced Monday that up to 350,000 pieces of information, including those of its customers, might have been compromised by cyber-attacks.
The company said the potentially stolen data includes its customers' personal details, such as names, telephone numbers and email addresses.
The company also revealed that it had been threatened by an attacker using ransomware, a computer virus used to demand money in exchange for stolen data that is essentially held hostage.
The data that may have been stolen includes about 134,000 pieces related to customer support, including customers' names and email addresses; about 153,000 pieces about former employees and their family members, or about job applicants, including their names, addresses and facial photos; and about 40,000 items on shareholders, including their names and the number of shares they possess.
The company said the possibility that credit card information was leaked is low.
However, it has been confirmed that nine pieces of data including names and passport data of its employees and former employees, and some of the company's financial data, had been taken.
According to Capcom, access issues were confirmed in its internal computer system before dawn on Nov. 2. The company received a message from a group that called itself Ragnar Locker, demanding that the company pay ransom money in exchange for the stolen data.
Ragnar Locker also demanded the company enter negotiations with the group by 8 a.m. on Nov. 11. After the deadline passed, Ragnar Locker exposed some data, believed to be internal Capcom documents, on the internet.
Officials of Capcom said that the company did not have any negotiations with the attacker, and they refrained from answering questions about the amount of the demanded ransom money. Capcom has consulted the Osaka prefectural police over the incident.
An official of the company said, "We deeply apologize [to our customers] for the trouble." The company has opened a consultation telephone line to deal with customers' questions, open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The phone number is (0120) 896-680.
-- Cases surge 50%
There have been many cases of damage inflicted on Japanese companies via ransomware. According to Trend Micro Inc., a Tokyo-based information security service company, the number of reports from companies in Japan about infections with ransomware viruses was 61 from January to September this year. The number increased by 50% from 42 in the corresponding period last year.
In June, Honda Motor Co. was hit by a cyber-attack with ransomware, and 11 of its manufacturing plants in Japan and abroad were temporarily forced to stop production.
A remarkable number of cases since this summer are of an exposure type, in which attackers threaten to disclose stolen data on the internet.
In early July, a cyber-attacker disclosed information of a mold maker in Aichi Prefecture, including its expense sheets and product blueprints.
Yu Arai, executive security analyst of NTT Data Corp. who is an expert on ransomware incidents, said: "Ransomware viruses intrude through points with relatively low security levels, such as overseas offices and personal computers in employees' houses. It is common that infections with the computer viruses then spread in companies' core systems. It is necessary to take measures, such as avoiding using the same passwords, avoiding usage of old types of access devices, and introducing two-stage identification when users log in."
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