GMO Internet Group, Inc. will cut Chairman and Group CEO Masatoshi Kumagai’s pay 30% after a cloud breach exposed customer information and led its subsidiary to offer compensation.
The reduction will last three months, starting with his December 2026 payment, the parent company said in a Nov. 2 filing. Three other executives will have their pay reduced 20% or 25% for the same period.
Kumagai apologized at a news conference Monday, The Associated Press reported. “I offer my deepest felt apologies,” he said, according to the outlet.
The breach affected Onamae.com Desktop Cloud, operated by GMO Internet, Inc. The subsidiary said 26,739 servers were potentially affected; that figure does not represent a count of customers or losses. It began shutting down servers across all service plans on Oct. 21. Its investigation found that customer information had been taken, while some customers reported transactions in trading accounts that they did not recognize.
Every current customer of the service will receive ¥5,000, including those without a financial loss. Where GMO Internet confirms that a transaction was unauthorized, it says it will reimburse the resulting realized trading loss and fees. Indirect losses are excluded. The subsidiary also announced payments based on the information category for customers whose data it confirms was included in material disclosed by the attackers, capped at ¥3 million per disclosure.
GMO Internet will bear the announced customer compensation costs. It said it cannot yet calculate the total financial impact because it has not determined the full scope of eligible payments and trading claims.
In a published account, Kumagai said internal security specialists had raised concerns about the service before the breach. He said the operating team acted too slowly while weighing service availability and other priorities. EconoTimes previously covered those warnings and the response.
The subsidiary plans to replace the compromised infrastructure. Customers who migrate to the alternative desktop service it is arranging will receive six months of free use. GMO Internet said it had begun contacting customers about payments and the alternative service by Oct. 30. It plans to release claim procedures and a payment timetable for trading losses by Nov. 6.
