Japan's communications ministry on Tuesday urged LY Corp., the operator of the Line messaging app, to strengthen the protection of users' personal data following a massive data breach.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said the app provider relies heavily on Naver Corp. of South Korea, a major shareholder of LY, to operate the app system and lacked appropriate countermeasures against cyberattacks.
The ministry called on the Japanese company to improve its operations through a review of its capital relationship with Naver as it is under "considerable influence" from the South Korean company.
LY was 64.5 percent owned by A Holdings Corp., which was half owned by Japanese telecom company SoftBank Corp. and the other half by Naver as of October last year.
LY said in November as many as 440,000 items of personal data, including those related to its users and business partners, were leaked due to unauthorized access. The number increased to about 510,000 after a subsequent investigation.
The leakage was caused when malware infected a server of LY's South Korea-based affiliate, Naver Cloud Corp., through a computer of a subcontractor. Naver Cloud and LY share an in-house system for dealing with employee and other personnel information, and this allowed unauthorized access into LY's internal system, according to LY.
The Japanese app operator had a similar data security issue in 2021, and is now required to regularly report the progress it is making in improving its operations.
"We strongly demand (LY) ensure its users' interests are protected," communications minister Takeaki Matsumoto said at a press conference.
LY President Takeshi Idezawa told reporters following the administrative measure that his company will "do our utmost to create an environment where our customers can use our services safely."
LY is considering punishing its executives over the data leakage, Idezawa added.
The Line app had 194 million users globally as of September 2022, according to the operator. Of those, 93 million were in Japan, 53 million in Thailand, 22 million in Taiwan and 8 million in Indonesia, it said.
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