Photo/Illutration The Yamanashi prefectural government notifies on X that its website is difficult to browse.

System failures have hit the websites of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and local governments across Japan, and officials suspect a widespread cyberattack possibly launched from overseas.

The causes are still under investigation, but officials have confirmed that an overwhelming amount of traffic to the sites came from abroad.

One of the earliest reported problems occurred on the Yamanashi prefectural government’s website, which was difficult to browse from 3:15 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. on Oct. 16.

According to a prefectural official in charge of digital transformation and information policy promotion, the site was accessed about 6.2 million times from 69 countries by 5 p.m.

The flood of traffic had continued as of 8 p.m.

“There may have been an attack that generated such a large volume of communications that the service became unavailable,” the official said.

The government of Nanao city in Ishikawa Prefecture also confirmed that its website was not working properly at around 4 p.m.

The city was notified by the company that maintains and manages the website that a high concentration of traffic was causing problems.

Other municipalities told The Asahi Shimbun that they experienced similar problems on Oct. 16.

They were: Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture; Adachi, Suginami and Arakawa wards in Tokyo; Fujisawa and Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture; Ninomiya town in Kanagawa Prefecture; Mito; and Hiroshima.

Also, the website of Michinoku Bank in Aomori city became inaccessible after 3 p.m. that day. The bank said it has prepared an alternative website and is investigating the possibility of a cyberattack.

With the confirmation of the flood of traffic from overseas, local government officials suspect they are victims of “DDoS attacks,” which are malicious attempts to disrupt internet-related services by sending an overwhelming amount of data.

According to sources, a pro-Russian cyberattack group has been publishing a list of Japanese local governments and private organizations as “attack targets” on social media and other sites for several days now.

The Asahi Shimbun learned that some of the local governments and organizations on the list have confirmed system failures of their websites.

Also on Oct. 15, the day campaigning for the Lower House election officially started, the LDP’s website experienced difficulties.

According to the LDP’s headquarters, the top page of the party’s website was difficult to access from about 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

An LDP representative said the cause of the problem is under investigation.

However, there were no connection problems with a special website for the Lower House election.

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