Canada's data breach costs hit record CA$7.11 million, energy sector hardest hit

Samart Telcoms Public Company Limited, or SAMTEL, disclosed that Secure Info Company Limited, or SCI, a subsidiary in which the company holds a 99.99% indirect stake through Samart Comtech Company Limited, signed a purchase and sale contract for the procurement of machinery and equipment for the project to establish a cyber operations center and a data backup center, or Digital Resilience Center, at the SMART PARK Industrial Estate office with the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand on September 29, 2026. The total project value is 146.20 million baht, including value-added tax, with delivery scheduled for completion by April 27, 2027. Payment terms are divided into five installments based on completed work progress.

IDC Frontier, a SoftBank subsidiary that provides cloud services, announced on the 7th that it suffered unauthorized access by a third party, causing an outage in its IDCF Cloud service for municipalities and businesses. The outage occurred around 3:40 a.m. that day, leaving some services unavailable. The company said it received an external ransomware attack, and the cloud management platform automatically executed a shutdown. The company has not disclosed details of its service customers, but numerous websites, including those of Ibaraki Prefecture, the city of Kodaira in Tokyo, Jiji Press, and Tobu Zoo, became impossible to view or update. To prevent secondary damage and data leaks, the company has cut off its network and is working to identify the detailed intrusion route while rushing to set up an alternative environment.

Two large Christian churches in South Korea are rushing to investigate a cyberattack after personal data of many members was found on overseas servers. Oasis Security disclosed that it found member data, account information, and attack logs linked to Yoido Full Gospel Church and Sarang Church in Seoul. Yoido Full Gospel Church said today that a preliminary review found data of as many as 850,000 members may have leaked, mostly names and dates of birth, while a smaller portion included records of changes to resident registration numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. The church has notified potentially affected members, suspended external access to its servers, and changed passwords to prevent further leaks. Sarang Church said it has set up a task force to investigate the attack and has notified the relevant authorities. Oasis Security said some evidence points to the use of AI tools, including references to sub-agents, as well as numerous attack reports that appear to have been generated by automated systems. The attack comes as South Korea faces a wave of cyberattacks; previously, several commercial banks were hacked, causing customer personal data to leak. President Lee Jae-myung said on Tuesday that he believes AI may have been used in the attacks on those banks.

A wave of unauthorized access targeting companies has led to a series of personal data leaks, and at a subsidiary of GMO Internet Group, secondary damage was also confirmed in which members' points were fraudulently exchanged. GMO Research & AI announced that its survey site infoQ suffered unauthorized access, leaking the names, phone numbers and other data of 948,498 registered members, and it was found that points totaling 2.86 million yen belonging to some members had been exchanged for Amazon gift codes; the company will compensate the full amount. Mr. Max Holdings, which operates discount stores, also disclosed on the 6th that the phone numbers, email addresses and other data of up to 1,735,154 members of its store-operating company's app and online store had leaked. In addition, Daiwa Securities said data on about 110,000 customers may have been compromised, and Citizen Watch said data on about 100,000 customers may have leaked, among other incidents, with cyberattacks showing no sign of letting up. It has also been pointed out that the spread of artificial intelligence is casting a shadow as a background factor behind the surge.