Japan to use AI in cyberattack simulations

Japan will establish a team that uses artificial intelligence to simulate cyberattacks and identify weaknesses in technology systems, Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa announced Friday, as organizations in Japan and elsewhere respond to vulnerabilities in the widely used PHP programming language. The Information-technology Promotion Agency, which operates under Akazawa’s ministry, is expected to establish the team in November, according to a report on the plan. It will stage simulated attacks to help organizations find weaknesses before criminals exploit them. Akazawa said defenders should consider how attackers might get through a system and use AI proactively. He did not explicitly link the initiative to the PHP flaws, according to one account of his remarks. The PHP vulnerabilities prompted companies and government agencies to patch systems or temporarily take some online services offline. Nomura, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, ANA and East Japan Railway suspended some online services as precautionary measures. Japan’s Ministry of Finance, National Tax Agency and Meteorological Agency also took some services offline. SoftBank said it was suspending its mobile emergency...