GMO's Kumagai Refuses Ransom After Desktop Cloud Breach

GMO Internet Group chief Masatoshi Kumagai said on November 2 that the company will not pay a ransom to the attackers behind the unauthorized access to "Onamae.com Desktop Cloud", a VPS service for automated forex trading run by group company GMO Internet. He spoke at a briefing on the incident.

The session had three parts. In the first, Kumagai and other executives apologized, and GMO Internet vice president Hiroshi Yamashita explained how the damage unfolded. The second part, titled around lessons learned, was where Kumagai spoke at length about changes across the industry. He later clarified during Q&A that this breach and the rise in AI-powered cyberattacks are separate issues.

"Not one step" toward paying criminals

Kumagai, 63, recalled 31 years in the internet industry and said he has never used the words "profit" or "earn", arguing that profit is a result, not a goal. He grew tearful when discussing the 23 years since the company entered the certificate authority business, saying he wants a safe and secure internet.

He attributed the daily stream of data-leak news to the development of AI. Since OpenAI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, he said, the pace of change has gone from exponential to nearly vertical, and the last six months have been especially intense because "AI is developing AI". Criminals adapted first, he argued, which is why GMO will not pay "one step" of money: their main goal is money, and paying would encourage them.

He cited an attack on South Korean financial institutions in which the perpetrator used an AI tool called ARTEX. According to Kumagai, the tool switches between multiple AIs and keeps probing a target's weaknesses even when one model refuses, so that even a teenager with a little knowledge could become a criminal. He called the current disruption "still just the prologue".

From security to resilience

Kumagai named his company's slowness in adopting "resilience" as the biggest problem. The concept, around in the industry for over a decade, accepts that intrusions cannot be fully prevented and focuses on stopping them quickly and recovering. GMO must change "from a security company to a resilience company", he said.

He likened attacks to a shift "from pistols to machine guns" and warned that the internet could become unusable if society cannot keep pace. He said he was not trying to deflect from his own failure, and urged reporters to convey the message so people, companies and governments adapt.