(AsiaGameHub) – According to Japanese media outlets, operators of online casinos temporarily took control of the website belonging to Japanese electronics retailer Ibiden earlier this week.
Headquartered in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, Ibiden deals in both electronics and ceramic products.
Japanese broadcaster Tokai TV reported that for several hours on the evening of April 13, the company’s website “showed pages that appeared to belong to an online casino operated outside of Japan.”
Ibiden representatives did not offer comment on the specific nature of the online casino-related content that was displayed. However, the company confirmed it had encountered an “outage” in an official statement posted to its website on April 14. It added: “We offer our sincere apologies for the significant concern we have caused to our customers and all involved parties.”
The company noted that its website server “received unauthorized access from an external third party.” Ibiden is also reportedly looking into filing an official report with police.
Multiple functions on the website remained inaccessible as of April 15.
Online Casino Incident: Japanese Electronics Retailer Experiences ‘Outage’
“Our investigation and recovery efforts are still ongoing, as we work to determine the source of the unauthorized access,” the firm shared in its statement. “Work is continuing to identify the root cause of the outage, enhance our security measures, and roll out permanent solutions for this issue.”
Ibiden stated that no personal user information was compromised during the purported hack, though it admitted its website had briefly “displayed harmful web pages.”
“Still, given the potential risks associated with this unauthorized access, we urge our customers to confirm that the security systems on their personal devices are updated to the latest version,” Ibiden noted.
“We will share further updates once our maintenance work is finished, and will immediately disclose any information that requires public release in the near future,” the company added.
This alleged online casino takeover follows a series of similar incidents where online casino operators seized control of multiple anime-related websites.
All these anime website takeovers follow the same common pattern: online casino promoters wait until the domain registrations for older anime title websites expire.
They then purchase these lapsed domains and copy content from the original website. Alongside the seemingly harmless anime content, they also insert links directing users to online casinos.
Online casino promoters have also carried out these types of attacks outside of Japan. Earlier this year, a fake online casino pretending to be a licensed Russian bookmaker took over the former official website of the city of Yakutsk.
Another incident this year saw online casino operators seize control of the old website belonging to Kyrgyzstan’s state-owned trading company.
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