A hacker who identifies him/herself as BH_Hacker has dumped data on Pastebin that allegedly comes from a kenken.go.jp database. The National Institute of Building Research identifies itself as an incorporated administrative agency of Japan.
The data dump contains 330 records with first and last names, usernames, email addresses, and telephone numbers. With one exception, there were no passwords in the table.
The institute posted a statement on its website (.pdf, Japanese) about the leakage. A Google translation seems to suggest that they offered a profound apology for the incident and noted that the personal information belongs to those who were international trainees in earthquake engineering.
In response to the incident, they have removed the server of the International Earthquake Engineering Center (approximate translation?) and are working to address all security issues to provide better security for data.
Of course, this leaves one wondering what’s the point of hacking this site and exposing personal information of people who are just studying how to engineer buildings to prevent deaths and injuries due to earthquakes. Surely that’s a worthwhile cause? I doubt this is part of Japan’s cybersecurity drill. Has anyone seen an explanation from the hacker as to why this site was targeted?