Japan Declares Cybersecurity Emergency, Experts Nod to AI

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Japan has declared a cybersecurity emergency, following a spate of attacks on its companies in recent weeks. Some experts are already pointing the finger at AI

Over 20 major firms, including convenience store chain Lawson and car rental operator Times Car, have reported attacks, according toThe Financial Times, leading to the loss of tens of millions of pieces of customer data. This included 1.67 million customer email addresses from the booking system of JR East, the country’s largest rail operator

For businesses in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Middle East, the warning is practical: AI can lower the effort required to target smaller services, so security reviews should account for scalable attacks—not just high-profile breaches

Japanese cybersecurity minister Toshiharu Furukawa said the situation was “extremely critical” at a meeting at the National Cybersecurity Strategy Headquarters. Meanwhile, Masaaki Taira, head of the NCSH, called the situation an “emergency in cyberspace.”

Masaki Hiraoka, managing director for north-east Asia at cybersecurity group Blackpanda, told the FT that even if the recent spate of attacks hasn’t been explicitly linked to AI use, the technology is enabling hackers to carry out attacks that once required time-consuming investigations ahead of time

“Smaller services that previously weren’t worth the effort could become

Meanwhile, Nobuo Miwa, president of Tokyo-based cybersecurity firm S&J Corp, compared the recent attacks to “carpet bombing” in a statement to Reuters. Miwa also posited that AI tools may be allowing foreign hackers to overcome language barriers that might have previously made it harder to attack Japanese firms

Japan recorded more cybersecurity incidents in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of last year, according to data from TrendAI shared with Reuters

Regulators are calling on firms to tighten up their onboarding amid the stolen data. The Financial Services Agency has reportedly called on lenders to accept only forms of identification containing ID chips, such as passports or Japan’s MyNumber national identity cards, in response to the number of driver’s license images leaked following an attack on Times Car, the country’s biggest car rental agency.

We’ve already seen cyber attacks impact the real-world operations of some of Japan’s largest companies. In October 2025, an attack on Asahi Group Holdings caused most of the company’s 30 domestic factories to shut down, leading to shortages of the popular Asahi Super Dry beer

What Japan’s cyber emergency means for Middle East businesses

The incident is a reminder for organizations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and across the Middle East to consider how AI could make smaller services ty figures apply to this cybersecurity news story

Source: me.pcmag.com