Officials at Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA) told Kyodo that a breach at emergency communications provider Arcadia Inc. may have put records from 22 prefectural police forces at risk.
NPA officials told Jiji that about 125,000 officers and staff at 20 forces used Arcadia’s disaster safety check service. Names and email addresses were among the records potentially exposed.
Arcadia said it detected suspicious activity on Oct. 11 and took an initial emergency measure to close an intrusion route on Oct. 12. After identifying the external entry route, it shut the affected services on Oct. 13.
A separate Arcadia crime-alert service was used by four forces, Jiji reported. Its lists held contact details for about 16,000 individuals and roughly 2,600 business or organization registrations. Kyoto and Fukuoka used both services, accounting for the overlap in the total of 22 forces.
Arcadia also disclosed that its system sent 1,423,428 phishing emails on Oct. 13. The company did not say those emails used the police contact lists.
No leak of investigative information has been confirmed, Kyodo reported. Arcadia and police warned people to watch for suspicious messages. The NPA is checking the facts, while Arcadia says its investigation continues and it will provide further findings.
