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Japan is advanced in ICT when compared with other industrial cojn tries. Its broadband network already covers about 80 percent of the opulation, and is scheduled to cover virtually the whole country by 2010.

Recently the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released a study about how users take advantage of the Internet. Japan’s Internet penetration is:

> 87.0% for households,
> 99.1% for large companies, and
> 85.7% for small enterprises.

The percentage of broadband connections for households such as using FTTH, DSL, cable modem or wireless access (e.g., FWA) in comparison to all Internet-connected households was 62.%

>Section 2 ICT Use by Individuals – Japan

Internet usage by households according to device looks as follows:

> Computer and cell phone/PHS/PDA 48.62 million (57.05%)
> Cell phone/PHS/PDA only 19.21 million (22.5%)

Get more information about this here (see Figure 8 on page eight):

• Information and Communications in Japan 2006 – Feature: Ubiquitous Economy (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) (26 pages)

The above figures suggest that Japan is one of the world’s leaders regarding the use of the Internet and mobile technologies. Unfortunately, sedcurity has become a problem as well, for instance, last month KDDI, Japan’s 2nd biggest telecoms firm, reported a security leak that resulted in almost 4m customers’ account information being compromised.

>2 held in extortion after KDDI data leak (2006-06-15)

During 2006, information on the management of nuclear power plants was obtained through virus attacks

> Virus leaks power plant secrets for second time in four months (2006-05-17)

Also disturbing is the fact that the number of people arrested in Japan for attacking computers with viruses in the hunt for information has more than doubled in four years according to a study by the Japanese National Police Agency.

The reports say that the number of arrested people against “Violation of Unauthorized Computer Access Law” were as follows:

2001 67
2002 105
2003 145
2004 142
2005 277

In fact, the number of people arrested for fraud and other crimes linked to the Internet jumped almost 52 percent last year to a record 3,161 (2,081 in 2004 alone).

>Crimes in Japan in 2004 – National Police Academy (English) (see p. 10)>Crimes in Japan in 2005 – National Police Academy (Japanese) (but look at graphs

The monthly reports about virus, spyware and attacking threats issued by the IT Security Center Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) clearly indicate that computer incidents are increasing as shown in its latest report.

> Computer Virus/Unauthorized Computer Access Incident Reports for May 2006 compiled by IPA, June 29, 2006

The above indicates that efforts for protecting information assets must continue to assure the widest diffusion possible and quick adoption of new technologies by end-users.