Japanese firms compensate users as cyberattacks disrupt economy

Japanese companies are compensating users following waves of cyberattacks that disrupted internet services and raised economic stability concerns. GMO Internet Group will pay clients 5,000 yen ($32) each as a goodwill gesture after unauthorized access to its currency trading service, while its shares fell nearly 14%. The attacks have exposed weaknesses in Japanese firms' customer data protection, with 723 cybersecurity incidents recorded this year through October 20, exceeding full-year totals for 2025 and 2024. Park24, operator of Times car-sharing, will pay 3,000 yen per customer after a data breach and expects a 5.5 billion yen exceptional loss. Government and corporate websites in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere went offline last week after critical flaws in the PHP programming language triggered millions of hacking attempts. GMO has urged the government to implement cyber-defense measures, including potentially attacking hostile servers, as experts say AI is automating hacking tasks and making cybercrime faster and harder to detect.