Japan's GMO Hit with $50 Million Ransom Demand by Hackers, Customer Data Suspected Leaked

Odaily Report: After GMO Internet Group of Japan suffered a cyberattack, hackers claimed they had published customer information after not receiving a $50 million ransom. GMO has not yet confirmed whether the follow-up ransomware attack threatened by the hackers occurred. The company said its foreign exchange trading service has been suspended since October 21 and it has stopped accepting new subscriptions; all servers of its domain and cloud service Onamae.com were compromised, potentially affecting all users. Previously, some customers had reported transactions they did not initiate.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said that five foreign exchange trading companies have reported customers affected by the incident, and no new unauthorized transactions have been reported so far. GMO has asked the government to help block the source of the attack and called for proactive cyber defense measures. Amid mounting concerns over the impact of the cyberattack, GMO's stock price posted its biggest drop since 2011 on Monday. (Bloomberg)