Japanese Parliament officials and staff monitored by Malware

The recent revelations centering on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries isn’t the only cybercrime report coming out of Japan this week. As it turns out, the Lower House of the Japanese Parliament was attacked around the same time as Mitsubishi, which led to officials and staffers having their communications monitored.

Asahi Shimbun once again breaks the news, as sources tell them that 480 officials and staff in the Lower House were monitored for a least a month, thanks to Malware discovered on systems in late August. Investigators discovered that the Malware was installed sometime in July, after member of the Lower House opened a malicious email attachment.

The payload served additional Malware from a source in China, which included the ability to hijack passwords and other information. The speculation is that the attack was designed to gather information on national politics, such as foreign policy and defense policy.

A spokesperson for the Lower House told Asahi Shimbun: “We are investigating whether computers and servers are infected with viruses and undoing the damage. We are not aware of any tangible damage, such as data loss.”

The investigation into the network compromise is ongoing.

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