Five people, including the owner of an information technology-related company, were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of providing a virus built into smartphone applications that stole more than 10 million pieces of personal information from users' address books.
The Metropolitan Police Department said about 90,000 people's smartphones were infected with a virus lurking in applications they downloaded.
According to the MPD, this is the first case established to deal with such a large information theft in Japan.
Investigative sources said a man who runs an IT-related company allegedly created video applications for Android smartphones containing a virus that extracts personal information stored on the phone. In collusion with a woman who is the former president of another Tokyo-based IT-related firm, the man released the apps on Google Inc.'s official store for free in late March. He is suspected to have had the malicious apps transmit personal information, including telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, to an external server.
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )