Japanese police have confirmed 226 cases of damage from ransomware attacks in 2025, the second-highest annual total, data from the National Police Agency showed Thursday.
The number of ransomware attacks, in which perpetrators use a computer virus to encrypt data and demand payment to restore access, rose by four from the previous year.
Although some 60% of the victims were small and midsize companies, there were cases in which serious damage was inflicted on large companies, such as food and beverage giant Asahi Group Holdings and office and household goods supplier Askul.
The data showed that prolonged damage tended to lead to higher recovery costs, according to the NPA.
Among the 149 cases in which the virus type was identified, Qilin, used in the attack against Asahi Group, was the most prevalent ransomware with 32 cases, followed by LockBit, with 19 cases. 8Base, for which the NPA has developed a recovery tool, was identified in one case, showing a significant decrease in damage due to the effects of international joint investigations.
Meanwhile, the number of phishing scams reported to the Council of Anti-Phishing Japan, formed by financial institutions, grew by about 1.4 times to a record high 2,454,297 cases, according to the NPA report.
There was a surge in voice phishing cases in the February-April period and in November. In such cases, perpetrators posing as financial institution officials call people to obtain their bank account information and steal funds from their accounts.
Phishing cases by scammers posing as securities firms staff also rose, with the amount of damage from unauthorized internet transactions reaching about ¥740.8 billion, the report showed.
