Tokyo, Jan 2 (IANS): Japan's NTT Docomo Inc. said Thursday it suffered a cyberattack that caused a website failure and some service disruptions, local media reported, following a series of similar incidents at major firms in the country recently.
Japan's largest mobile carrier said a system glitch started around 5:27 am local time, making it difficult to connect to services due to a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which networks are overwhelmed by data from multiple sources over a short period, Kyodo News reported.
The search function for the "d payment" smartphone payment service also experienced problems, although mobile phones and other communication services were not affected, the company added, Xinhua news agency reported.
Recently, a series of system failures believed caused by the same type of attack have hit Japanese companies.
Japan Airlines experienced a problem with its system used by passengers to check in their baggage on December 26, while MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Resona Bank reported disruptions to online transactions and other problems between late December and Wednesday.
Last week, Japan Airlines (JAL) said many of its services were halted temporarily following a network disruption that caused problems with baggage check-ins and delays for more than a dozen flights at several Japanese airports.
The airlines had to eventually block the data transmission device that was causing the system failure.
JAL told police that it may have been the victim of a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS attack, in which networks are overwhelmed by massive amounts of data from multiple sources over a short period, according to investigative sources.
The company said it was working to counteract the cyberattack and determine its source.
The rising dependence on increasingly complex and interconnected computer systems in most domains of life is the main factor that causes vulnerability to cyberattacks, since virtually all computer systems have bugs that can be exploited by attackers.
Although it is impossible or impractical to create a perfectly secure system, there are many defence mechanisms that can make a system more difficult to attack, making information security a field of rapidly increasing importance in the world today.