Japan probes possible involvement of pro-Russian group in cyberattack

Japan is investigating the possible involvement of a pro-Russian group following the failure of multiple government websites, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday.

More than 20 websites across four government ministries could not be accessed on Tuesday evening but were restored on the same day, Matsuno said.

The government has not identified any information leaks and was looking into whether the failure was caused by a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, he added.

In a DDoS attack hackers attempt to flood a network with unusually high volumes of data traffic in order to paralyse it.