SoftBank President Junichi Miyagawa apologized on Monday for a cyberattack on subsidiary IDC Frontier, saying the intrusion took only seven minutes from the moment unauthorized access was detected, while the company's response fell behind.
"It is truly regrettable, and I feel deep remorse," Miyagawa said at an earnings press conference on Monday. He described the attack as lasting just seven minutes from detection, and said faster intrusions and diversifying methods are leaving companies struggling to keep up.
The attackers exploited a vulnerability contained in publicly available open-source software, according to Miyagawa. SoftBank had checked its own 700 in-house systems for flaws but had not run the same checks on open-source software.
The breach affected 495 companies and local governments that contract the services. No data leaked outside the company, he said.
Shutting services to cut off intruders
The time between detecting unauthorized access and damage occurring has been shrinking, Miyagawa said. "It is a contest of endurance, but the only way to prevent it is to keep responding," he said.
He stressed a policy of prioritizing the shutdown of services to block unauthorized access. More than 7,600 companies have adopted SoftBank's security service, which uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to detect vulnerabilities, he said.
On blocking — the forced cutting of connections to a site — as a cyber defense method, Miyagawa said it "can be a means of protecting individual rights." He added that because it touches the secrecy of communications, it should be carried out on the premise that legal standards are first set by law, and called on the government to legislate.
Profit forecast raised
SoftBank also said on Monday it had raised its consolidated net profit forecast for the fiscal year ending in March 2027 to 610 billion yen from 560 billion yen.
For the six months through September, revenue rose 11.7% from a year earlier to 3.798747 trillion yen. Operating profit rose 2.1% to 642.134 billion yen, and net profit rose 4.5% to 364.547 billion yen.