The Japanese government’s review of a recent data breach at popular Asian messaging application Line has led to the organization being ordered to separate its technology from parent company Naver.
A series of megamergers in recent years have led Line to become more popular than WhatsApp in countries such as Japan and Thailand, under the control of South Korean tech giant Naver. To make matters worse, in 2021, Line merged with SoftBank-owned Yahoo Japan, leaving Line’s businesses split between Japan’s SoftBank and South Korea’s Naver. All of this left behind a combined and disjointed technological footprint that provided an extensive and gaping attack surface that ultimately led to the November 2023 crisis. data compromise of more than 510,000 users of the line, according to the new administrative orientation released by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on March 5.
Somewhere along the path of the megamerger, Naver and SoftBank decided to team up to try to create an Asian tech giant, called LY Corp, to rival Google and Amazon, according to Nikkei Asia. The problem, according to the Japanese Ministry’s analysis, is that the organization resulting from the merger, which also includes Line and other services, has relied too much on Naver’s technology. Among the criticisms of Naver and Line’s cybersecurity practices is the presence of a Shared Active Directory among them, as well as the Naver cloud’s “broad access” to Line’s network, the Register reported.
“It is necessary to make appropriate considerations to review the management of your company, including your parent company, in order to make the management and supervision of the outsourced parties work properly,” the Ministry said in its final report to LY Corp.
Government regulators are calling for a review of Naver and Line’s IT practices, as well as regular quarterly updates on their progress.
LY Corp. has agreed to cooperate with the Japanese government’s requests, he said.