Japan's Active Cyber Defense Strategy

Uploaded on 2025-06-23 in INTELLIGENCE-Hot Spots-China, GOVERNMENT-Defence, FREE TO VIEW

Japan is creating a new cyber security strategy to be implemented by the end of 2025, as it moves to introduce a pre-emptive defence system by 2027. This illustrates that the government of Japan is responding to the growing risk of cyber attacks.

In preparation for increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, the new strategy will probably focus on strengthening public-private cooperation, cultivating cyber talent and boosting international collaboration.

This cyber defence bill will allow government agencies to monitor external telecommunications and pre-emptively respond to signs of cyber attacks, including neutralising attackers' servers.

At a meeting chaired by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi at the government's cyber security strategy headquarters, participants agreed to enhance defense by tracking hard-to-detect signs of attack on administrative bodies and key infrastructure.

The potential for adopting quantum-safe encryption and supporting smaller companies in bolstering their cyber security frameworks was also discussed, as a law allowing acts of "active cyber defense was enacted recently.

The law permits the government to monitor communications data during peacetime and authorises the disabling of hostile servers when attacks occur. By the end of 2025, the headquarters will be revamped, with the prime minister taking charge. It is designed to take the lessons learned from US experience in conducting similar operations and apply them to Japan’s unique cultural and legal frameworks to improve its own cyber resilience.

This development enables Japanese security agencies to proactively neutralise cyber threat actor operations before they could initiate their own attacks against Japanese targets. The law also allows Japan to provide cyber support to its allies as long as it furthers Japan’s self-defence interests.

The concept of active cyber defence, somteimes called 'Defend Forward' enables the delivery of preemptive strikes with the intent of disrupting hostile cyber actions to be directed against it or entities that are in its interests to protect, which can include allies as observed with US active defence operations.

Japan has been a frequent target of both cyber criminals as well as nation state actors that have targeted its critical infrastructure as well as private sector with a variety of attacks that have ranged from DDoS attacks, data breaches, and state-led cyber espionage campaigns.

During the first three months of 2025, criminal hackers hijacked Japanese financial accounts and conducted approximately $2 billion in authorised trades and Japan has been a frequent victim of North Korean nation-state cyber operations.

Japan's more active defence posture to address cyber adversaries is a catayst for other Westen nations, formalising the cyber 'cold war' that many believe already exists between the US and its Chinese, Northe Korean other adversaries.

Image: mirsad sarajlic

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