Initial Disclosure Date: Jul 30, 2012

On July 27, Anonymous posted a message to Pastebin and announced that they would target the websites of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and courts. The hacktivist group targeted TEPCO and courts in the past but not MOFA. On the 27th, OpJapan Official asked for DoS support and tweeted, “We cannot do this on our own, fire up those cannons and fire!” As of today, the websites do not seem to have suffered any damage. Later on that date, OpJapan Official complained that someone mistyped the URL of courts as “co.jp,” not “go.jp.” Th3 5nip3r tweeted “co.jp” on the 27th.

#OpJapan first began targeting the website of courts by its Tweet postings on June 26. According to the Supreme Court, Internet users could not open its website, which introduces nationwide courts and their websites, as of 8:50pm on June 26. The website, however, was restored about 50 minutes later. The Supreme Court claims that they do not know if this was caused by cyber-attacks. On the same evening, Internet users were not able to access the website of the Intellectual Property High Court for a while.

OpJapan Official started to Tweet anti-nuclear power plants and anti-TEPCO messages at early in the morning on July 2. AnonymousIRC argued in Japanese, “Are you unhappy about the government and electronic companies that restart nuclear power plants? We support you!” Back in May 2011, Anonymous launched “Operation Green Rights,” which aimed at launching cyber-attacks on companies that pollute the globe. Their four target candidates were Bayer, BP, the Dow Chemical Company, and TEPCO, which had the Fukushima nuclear disaster. They, however, did not launch cyber-attacks on TEPCO in 2011.

Sources:
Shukan Diamond (Weekly Diamond), “Anonymous ga saiba kogeki no taisho kigyo wo ‘senkyo’ ‘Chikyu no midori no teki’ 1i Bayer, 2i Toden [Anonynous chose target companies for its cyber-attacks --- the 1st choice is Bayer and the 2nd choice is TEPCO],” June 29, 2011,
http://diamond.jp/articles/-/12921
Sankei Shimbun, “Kokusaiteki hakka shudan, Nihon ni saiba kogeki? Zaimusho Saikosai HP nado de shogai [Anonymous, a international hacker group, started cyber-attacks on Japan? The websites of the Ministry of Finance and Supreme Court suffered access difficulties],” June 27, 2012,
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/news/120627/crm12062707080001-n1.htm

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