The website of the hacker group demanding a ransom from GMO has been taken down.
0.7%
of agree votes went to the 41 blaming the chief executive
1,376 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
To start from the basics: the law for crimes like this seems not to exist at all. Frankly, the Unauthorised Computer Access Act and the like are far too lax. And nothing has been done to regulate spam either - spam pretending to come from credit card companies runs wild and is a nuisance to a lot of people. Now that we live in a digital age, I want hacking, of course, and spam too, treated the same as robbery and other violent crimes, properly policed and severely punished. And since crimes of this kind are often committed from abroad, I'd like the law properly put in place so that all of them can be punished as crimes committed outside Japan. That said, actual arrests will be hard, I think, but heavy penalties that make this kind of crime not worth it must matter too.
Show original Japanese
そもそも論ですがこのような犯罪に対する法整備が全くできてないようですね。はっきり言って不正アクセス禁止法とか緩すぎますし。あと迷惑メールに対する規制も全然できてないですよね。クレジットカード会社を名乗る迷惑メールとか野放しになっていて多くの人が迷惑しています。デジタル時代になった今、ハッキングは言うに及ばず迷惑メールなども強盗などの凶悪犯罪と同視してしっかり取り締まるとともに厳しく罰してほしいと思っています。あとこの種の犯罪は国外から行われる場合も多いと思いますので、こういった犯罪のすべてについて国外犯として罰せるように法整備をしっかりやってほしいものです。とはいえ実際に検挙するのは難しいとは思いますが罰則が重くこの種の犯罪が割に合わないと思わせることも大事でしょうから。My lady's reading
This is what my lady thought, looking at this comment section.
A comment section stewing in frustration, turning hate on GMO purely out of dislike for the boss.
Not even GMO employees, yet with all this time to argue this way and that - better to sit down with your own company's IT department, use GMO as the example, and talk about what your own company can do and how to tighten its security!
That is my lady's reading.
Some of this can be counted. Were the comments aimed at the chief executive and at GMO? Where was the frustration aimed? Did any comment write about the defences of the writer's own company? First, though, what the story does not say.
The news
At 11:08am on 28 October 2026, TBS NEWS DIG published a story on Yahoo! News, updated at 1:55pm.
Its subject: in the cyber-attack on GMO Internet's systems, the website of the hacker group demanding a ransom from GMO has been taken down.
According to the story, the day before, the group had posted what appeared to be one user's data online, threatening to publish more personal data at noon every day unless a ransom was paid. Several security experts said the site could no longer be reached, apparently because a US provider judged its content inappropriate and suspended it. GMO also announced that it had confirmed the domain was suspended. GMO is sticking to its refusal to pay, and is seeking information through a bounty of up to 150 million yen in total. On social media, GMO's chief executive, Masatoshi Kumagai, warned anyone spreading the personal data directly: "delete it by the set time, or face a criminal complaint". The Tokyo Metropolitan Police are investigating on suspicion of violations of the Unauthorised Computer Access Act, among others.
Context for readers outside Japan
Yahoo! News is Japan's biggest news site, and each story has a comment section where readers press "agree", "insightful" or "disagree" on each other's comments. GMO Internet Group is one of Japan's large internet companies: domain registration (Onamae.com is its best-known brand), web hosting, payments, an online bank, and FX and securities brokerages. Its Desktop Cloud service was broken into this month, and the attackers have been trying to extort money by threatening to publish users' data. Kumagai founded the group and is a prominent figure on Japanese social media. In Japan, a victim of a crime can file a criminal complaint (keiji kokuso) asking police and prosecutors to pursue the offender.
What the story does not say
I read the notice GMO put out at 11am on 28 October - its 13th update on the incident. It says GMO confirmed the attackers' domain had been suspended at about 4am Japan time on the 28th, and that GMO had been "working with the relevant operators and others".
The same notice says that among those spreading what appeared on the attackers' site, malicious cases will face legal action, a criminal complaint included, and strongly urges anyone spreading it now to delete it at once. The notice sets no deadline. The chief executive's social media post quoted in the story, I have not looked at.
The 14th update, at 6:20pm, says the bounty site received 113 tips in its first six hours; that GMO sent warnings to 20 related posts on X; and that analysis of the users' devices it has received has so far found no trace of malware infection or ransomware. For the attack and the extortion themselves, it says GMO "will take" legal action, a criminal complaint included.
I also read the law the story names. Under Article 11 of the Unauthorised Computer Access Act, the offence carries "imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to one million yen". Article 14 says the offence follows Article 4-2 of the Penal Code: it applies to anyone, of any nationality, who commits it outside Japan. Extortion under Article 249 of the Penal Code carries up to 10 years' imprisonment. Which offences apply in this case, I cannot say.
89 to 11: 1,376 comments, 20 hours in
I read all 1,376 parent comments, as they stood at 7:27am on 29 October, about 20 hours after publication. The site was showing 1,381 parent comments when I loaded the thread; 5 of them would not load. The article showed 1,869 comments in total at 7:25am.
The buttons came to 40,552 agree, 3,878 insightful and 5,227 disagree presses. Positive presses against disagree presses: 89 to 11.
The votes lean toward the top. The first comment alone holds 40.1% of the agree presses, the top 3 62.2%, the top 5 70.9%, the top 10 82.5%. 555 of the 1,376 got no agree press at all.
Sorted by whom they were aimed at: the 427 comments (31.0%) calling for the attackers to be caught or punished hold 88.0% of the agree presses. The 41 (3.0%) with words blaming the chief executive hold 0.7%.
At the top: the law is far too lax
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
1st in the vote order: 16,266 agree, 647 insightful and 733 disagree presses, with 148 replies. This one comment holds 40.1% of all the agree presses in the thread.
The 227 comments calling for heavier punishment or changes to the law hold 48.0%; without the first, 13.2%. The 84 using the words death penalty, execution, or life imprisonment hold 2.9%.
The first comment also asks for crimes from abroad to be made "punishable as crimes committed outside Japan". As noted above, for unauthorised access, Article 14 already applies the offence to anyone who commits it outside Japan. That actual arrests will be hard, the comment says itself.
2nd to 7th: how to catch them
The 2nd comment (5,301 agree, 326 disagree) opens by saying that unless a criminal complaint is filed quickly, people spreading the data are bound to appear, so better to make an example early - then adds that the provider that took the site down won't necessarily know who the culprit is, and that this needs very advanced investigation. The 3rd (3,671 agree): taking the site down doesn't bring the stolen data back, and unless the hackers are actually caught, it's whack-a-mole. The 4th to 7th are about the same thing: whether the provider can lead to the culprits, and catching the culprits by working with other countries.
The 120 comments hoping the attackers would be caught hold 39.2% of the agree presses. The 149 saying the takedown ends nothing, that it's whack-a-mole, hold 11.8%, and the 56 welcoming the takedown 10.2%.
Why wait to file?
Among the comments on the chief executive's warning, most did not criticise the warning. File the complaint whether the data is deleted or not, why give a grace period, file now - 46 comments said so, and they hold 13.2% of the agree presses. But 13.1% of that is the 2nd comment; without it, 45 comments with 57 agree presses, 0.1%.
The 6 that criticised the warning itself - as a kind of threat, or a bluff - got 7 agree presses between them.
Comments blaming the chief executive drew more disagree
The 41 comments with words blaming the chief executive - the social media posts, the smiling photos, the character, the responsibility as head of the company - hold 0.7% of the agree presses. The 11 of them attacking the chief executive's character got 19.
Across the whole thread, disagree presses come to about one eighth of the agree presses (12.9%). For these 41 comments, it is 294 agree against 223 disagree - three quarters. The most-agreed of them, the 20th, said it was highly questionable for Kumagai to warn people spreading the data directly on social media - if there is time to post on X, explain publicly how the decision to delay the countermeasures was made, and take responsibility as head of the company. It got 154 agree presses and 177 disagree.
The 11 comments saying the chief executive had posted smiling photos in the middle of all this got 24 agree presses between them. One of them, the 107th (7 agree), began: "the hacker is to blame, obviously, but".
Widened to the comments blaming GMO's defences or management, it is 123 comments and 2.5%. The 5 defending the chief executive got 4 agree presses.
The comment my lady shared: 113th
In this emergency, the chief executive is posting on social media in person - isn't that the very thing provoking the hacker group? Paying condolence money to customers on top of a 150 million yen bounty... no, never mind the money: a good deal of time has passed since the first reports, security was always boasted to be watertight, and yet the damage has spread to the customers. What excuse will be offered for that? Personally, why was GMO targeted this time? Was there no mistake in how the negotiations were handled? That's what I'd like to know. I'd like it looked into from that angle too.
この緊急時に、社長自らがSNSで呟いているけど、その行為こそがハッカー集団を挑発させていることになるのではないか？
1億5千万の懸賞金を出す客に対して見舞金を出す…いや、金出してどうこうより、初回の報道からかなり時間も経過しているしセキュリティー対策は万全だと以前から豪語していたのに、契約者にまで被害が拡大したことについてどう言い訳するのだろうか。
個人的には
今回なぜ、GMOが狙われたのか？
交渉方法に落ち度はなかったのか？
気になりますね。
その点からも検証して欲しいです。6 agree, 0 insightful and 6 disagree presses, with no replies. In the site's recommended order, it sat 56th.
It suggests that the chief executive's posting on social media is itself provoking the hacker group - the only comment in the thread to say so. It also says security was always boasted to be watertight; whether that was ever said, I have not checked.
The day before, the thread pointed the other way
The evening before, Sponichi Annex ran the story of GMO's bounty, and I counted that thread in the note of 28 October. There, the comments with words blaming GMO's defences or handling held 60.4% of the agree presses, and those condemning the attacker or calling for punishment 1.4%.
In this thread, the comments with words blaming GMO's defences, management or chief executive hold 2.5%, and those condemning the attackers or calling for punishment 45.7%. Even without the first comment, the attackers' side comes to 9.4% and GMO's to 4.2%.
That story was about the bounty - something GMO did; this one is about the attackers' site being taken down. A different story brings different writers and readers, so I cannot say the same people changed their minds overnight.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady called this a comment section stewing in frustration, turning hate on GMO purely out of dislike for the boss.
The 41 comments with words blaming the chief executive hold 0.7% of the agree presses. Widened to GMO's defences and management, 123 and 2.5%. In the top 50 of the site's recommended order, there was no comment blaming the chief executive.
The frustration was there. The 227 calling for heavier punishment or changes to the law hold 48.0%, and 84 used the words death penalty, execution, or life imprisonment. It was aimed at the attackers. There was even a comment warning against blaming GMO too much.
Opinions differ on how the chief executive and the company have handled it, but blaming GMO too much is exactly what the culprits want.
社長や会社の対応には賛否あるけど、そこで過度にGMO側を責めるとそれこそ犯人の思うつぼ。96th in the vote order: 8 agree, 2 insightful and 5 disagree presses.
My lady also said: not even GMO employees, yet with all this time to argue this way and that - better to sit down with your own company's IT department, use GMO as the example, and talk about what your own company can do.
The 181 comments weighing in on GMO's handling - blaming GMO or the chief executive, the compensation, how to go about the criminal complaint - hold 15.9%. 13.1% of that is the 2nd comment, the one saying file now; without it, 2.9%.
Not one comment mentioned the defences of the writer's own company. The word for a company's IT department does not appear anywhere. Widened to anything about preparing on one's own side - protect yourself, it could be us next, individuals and organisations alike - it is 17 comments with 16 agree presses between them. Only one mentioned organisations at all, and it got no agree presses.
Given how confident GMO is, the culprit may turn out easier to catch than expected - but with this as the trigger, stronger defences against more advanced online crime, Qilin included, can't wait any longer, for individuals and organisations alike.
GMOの強気に案外捕まえやすい犯人かもと思いつつ、ただこれをきっかけにキリーンふくめたより高度なネット犯罪への強化は個人でも組織でも待ったなしですね。895th in the vote order: 0 agree, 0 insightful and 0 disagree presses.
What I have not checked
This is the thread about 20 hours after publication. Comments added later are not in these counts.
The chief executive's social media posts, I have not looked at. Some comments said the chief executive posted smiling photos, threatened complaints even against people who had not spread anything, or confirmed that the published data was real; I have not checked any of it.
I have not opened the attackers' site or anything said to have been published. Who prompted the takedown, I have not checked beyond what GMO's notice says about "working with the relevant operators and others".
Which comment goes where was decided by reading each one, not by searching for words. Treat the counts as approximate.
The 54 comments (3.9%) that lumped people together by country or nationality, or used extreme language, hold 0.2% of the agree presses. They are counted, but I have not quoted them. The 6 asserting the whole thing was staged got 3 agree presses between them.
In closing
My lady called this a comment section stewing in frustration, turning hate on GMO purely out of dislike for the boss.
In this thread, the 41 comments with words blaming the chief executive drew 0.7% of the agree presses. The 427 calling for the attackers to be caught or punished drew 88.0%. The comments mentioning the defences of the writer's own company: 0.
The frustration was there. It was aimed at the attackers, at the law, and at the state. None of it turned toward the writers' own companies.
That is as far as the counting goes.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 16266 ∕ 733 The law simply hasn't caught up with crimes like this. The Unauthorised Computer Access Act is far too lax, and nothing has been done about spam either. Hacking and spam alike should be treated like robbery and other violent crime, policed properly and punished hard. Since so much of it comes from abroad, make it punishable when committed overseas. Arrests may be hard, but heavy penalties that make the crime not worth it matter
- 2nd 5301 ∕ 326 Unless a criminal complaint is filed quickly, people spreading the data are bound to appear, so better to make an example early. The provider that took the site down won't necessarily know who the culprit is - with fake contract details or an anonymising service, the registration alone won't lead to anyone. The key is matching the traces of the break-in against the site's records; this needs very advanced investigation
- 3rd 3671 ∕ 116 The site was always going to be taken down, and the hackers must have expected it. Taking it down doesn't bring the stolen data back, and the site will very likely reappear on another domain or server. Unless the hackers are actually caught, it's endless whack-a-mole
- 4th 2107 ∕ 221 If a US provider took the site down, maybe Japanese police prompted it. Knowing the provider could lead to the culprits, and the Tokyo police are investigating. May the takedown lead to tracing the source and arresting whoever did it
- 5th 1420 ∕ 94 Work with other countries to identify the hackers and treat this as the crime it is. Tracking the hackers down with a bounty seems likely to work too. Too often in the past, no cooperation abroad meant victims just had to swallow it; being able to work with other countries to find the culprits is a big step
Every number from this thread
I read all 1,376 parent comments, as they stood at 7:27am on 29 October 2026, about 20 hours after publication. The site was showing 1,381 parent comments when I loaded the thread; 5 of them would not load. The article showed 1,869 comments in total at 7:25am, and the parent comments had 473 replies. The buttons came to 40,552 agree, 3,878 insightful and 5,227 disagree - 89 to 11. Agree against disagree alone is also 89 to 11. The votes lean toward the top: the first comment alone holds 40.1% of the agree presses, the top 3 62.2%, the top 5 70.9%, the top 10 82.5% and the top 20 90.7%. 555 of the 1,376 got no agree press at all, 332 got no press of any kind, and the 243 where disagree outnumbered agree hold 33.4% of all disagree presses in the thread. The average comment is 71.8 characters long, and the 543 under 40 characters hold 1.5% of the agree presses. Of the 473 replies, 148 are on the top comment. I counted whom each comment was aimed at. The 427 comments (31.0%) aimed at the attackers - hoping for an arrest, calling for heavier punishment or new laws, for working with other countries, for hitting back, or condemning the attackers - hold 88.0% of the agree presses and 70.6% of the insightful presses. 40.1% of that is the first comment; without it, 80.0%. Narrowed to the comments condemning the attackers or calling for punishment, 232 and 45.7%; without the first, 9.4%. The 41 (3.0%) with words blaming the chief executive - the social media posts, the smiling photos, the character, the responsibility as head of the company - hold 0.7% of the agree presses and 4.3% of the disagree presses. Widened to comments blaming GMO's defences or management, 123 (8.9%), 2.5% of the agree presses and 8.4% of the disagree presses. I also counted what the comments said. The 227 calling for heavier punishment or changes to the law hold 48.0%; without the first, 13.2%. The 84 using the words death penalty, execution, or life imprisonment hold 2.9%. The 120 hoping the attackers would be caught hold 39.2%. The 149 saying the takedown ends nothing, that it's whack-a-mole, hold 11.8%, and the 56 welcoming the takedown 10.2%. On the chief executive's warning, the 46 asking why wait, or saying file the criminal complaint now, hold 13.2%, of which 13.1% is the 2nd comment; without it, 0.1%. The 6 criticising the warning itself got 7 agree presses. The 132 demanding more of the government, police or parliament hold 9.1%, the 68 mentioning the bounty 6.9%, the 69 praising the refusal to pay or cheering GMO's fight 3.9%, and the 75 guessing the attackers are amateurs or children 1.6%. Now, the results for my lady's reading. My lady called this a comment section stewing in frustration, turning hate on GMO purely out of dislike for the boss. The 41 comments with words blaming the chief executive hold 0.7%; the 11 of them attacking the chief executive's character got 19 agree presses. Those 41 drew 294 agree and 223 disagree presses - a far higher share of disagree than the 12.9% for the thread as a whole. In the top 50 of the site's recommended order, there was no comment blaming the chief executive. The frustration was aimed at the attackers. My lady also said: not even GMO employees, yet with time to argue this way and that - better to sit down with your own IT department, use GMO as the example, and talk about what your own company can do. The 181 comments weighing in on GMO's handling - blaming GMO or the chief executive, the compensation, how to go about the criminal complaint - hold 15.9%; without the 2nd comment, 2.9%. The comments mentioning the defences of the writer's own company: 0. Widened to anything about preparing on one's own side - protect yourself, it could be us next, individuals and organisations alike - 17 comments, 16 agree presses between them. Which comment goes where was decided by reading all 1,376 one by one, so treat the counts as approximate. The 54 comments (3.9%) that lumped people together by country or nationality, or used extreme language, hold 0.2% of the agree presses. I have not quoted them. The comment my lady shared is 113th in the vote order: 6 agree, 0 insightful and 6 disagree presses.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
