PLA seen to be behind cyber attacks on Japan: NHK

TOKYO/BEIJING • China's military is thought to have instructed a hacker group to conduct cyber attacks on nearly 200 Japanese research institutions and firms, public broadcaster NHK said, citing unidentified people in a police investigation.

The investigators found a member of China's Communist Party signed contracts under a false name for rental servers in Japan that were used in the attacks on the Japanese space agency Jaxa in 2016, the broadcaster said yesterday.

They believe the attacks were done by a group, Tick, under the People's Liberation Army's instructions. Two men involved with contracts for the servers have left Japan, NHK said.

A Chinese systems engineer in his 30s - a Chinese Communist Party member - was referred to prosecutors over alleged involvement in the attacks, said Kyodo News, citing unnamed sources.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato declined to comment on the probe. He said cyber attacks on infrastructure have become more organised and the government saw responding to such incidents as an important issue.

Responding to a question on the NHK report about the alleged suspect, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he was not aware of the case. He later added that cyberspace is made up of many actors whose origins are hard to trace and warned against making accusations in such cases.

"In designating an incident, there must be ample evidence. It cannot be based on presumption," he said yesterday at a regular news briefing. "We are against other countries smearing us on cyber security or using this issue to serve its despicable political agenda."

A Jaxa spokesman confirmed it was the subject of unauthorised access that seemed to be a cyber attack, but suffered no damage, NHK said.

BLOOMBERG