Photo/Illutration Atsushi Katsuki, president of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd., middle, bows at the start of a news conference outlining the investigation results of the system failure caused by a cyberattack in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Nov. 27. (Masaaki Kobayashi)

“This time the cyberattack was far more advanced and sophisticated than anything we had anticipated.”

That was the sobering assessment delivered on Nov. 27 by the president of the food and beverage giant Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. at a news conference. 

The president was outlining the findings of the company’s investigation into a ransomware attack it suffered at the end of September.

The report revealed the striking malice and technical sophistication of the attack, claimed by the group “Qilin,” which crippled Asahi Group’s systems, disrupted logistics and may have exposed nearly 2 million pieces of personal data.

The attackers infiltrated the company’s network system by exploiting devices within the group, eventually breaching the data center and obtaining administrator passwords.

With elevated privileges, they made repeated forays into servers to map out the system before launching a coordinated strike that encrypted data on numerous employee computers.

The incident stirred memories of a very different era—long before smartphones and social media defined our digital lives—when the infamous “Love Bug” virus, one of the most destructive computer worms in history, wreaked havoc across the globe. That was 25 years ago.

Within hours, the worm had infected tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide. Even the U.S. Department of Defense wasn’t spared; the Pentagon was forced to shut down its email servers. The sheer scale of the damage stunned the world.

The mass-mailing worm spread through email messages bearing the subject line “ILOVEYOU” and an attachment titled “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.”

Once opened, the script overwrote files, stole passwords and automatically sent copies of itself to every contact in the victim’s address book.

The primary creator of the worm—a computer science student in his 20s from the Philippines—later told me in Manila what drove him.

“I wanted to prove I was a world-class hacker,” he said.

At the time, the Philippines had no cybercrime laws under which he could be charged, and he was never prosecuted.

According to Japan’s National Police Agency, recognized ransomware incidents in the country rose to 222 cases last year, continuing an upward trend. A survey of victims found that half of the infections could be traced to vulnerabilities in VPN (virtual private network) devices.

Gone are the days when a curious click on a digital “love letter” could bring down entire systems. Today’s attackers no longer rely on simple deception—they force their way in, ruthless and calculated, driven by the pursuit of profit.

It raises an unsettling question: is there any real escape from such relentless digital predators?

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 28

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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