GMO chairman apologizes over cyberattack | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News - NHKニュース

Japan's GMO Internet Group has held its first news conference addressing the cyberattack on its foreign exchange trading platform.

The company's chairman apologized for the disruption caused by the attack. He also admitted that management failed to fix security vulnerabilities it had been warned about two years earlier.

Chairman and Group CEO Kumagai Masatoshi and other executives detailed the circumstances of the breach. They explained measures to prevent further damage and provide compensation.

GMO announced the breach in late October. The chairman told reporters on Monday that the group's cybersecurity subsidiary had warned of system vulnerabilities in April 2024.

Kumagai said: "It is true that there were security issues with the service system. It is also true that cybersecurity experts had pointed out the issues. But the company failed to make use of the information in providing the service."

The company said the hackers entered the system through a customer's remote desktop on August 5, and took control of the administrator's account.

On August 17, the hackers used the administrator's access rights to breach the company's server.

GMO was sent a ransom demand following the breach but refused to pay. What was described as the personal information of one customer was posted on a website last Tuesday. The site was later shut down.