GMO Cybersecurity finds Artex AI tool in attacks on Japanese firms

The disclosure by GMO Cybersecurity by Ierae adds a concrete data point to a rise in reported breaches at Japanese companies. Teikoku Databank's survey, released earlier this week, found around one-sixth of Japanese companies had suffered breaches, a figure that frames the scale of the problem the Artex finding sits within.

GMO's blog post also draws a possible parallel to incidents reported earlier this month by U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which described attacks on South Korean financial organizations. According to GMO, both sets of attacks involved Artex, suggesting the same tool may have been used across different targets in the region, though the link is presented as a similarity rather than a confirmed connection.

The forensic logs cited by GMO are the technical basis for its identification of Artex, and the company's role as a cybersecurity subsidiary of GMO Internet Group means the finding comes from an organization investigating the attacks directly rather than from a third-party assessment.