Nippon Columbia malware incident exposes 8.6 million karaoke fan records

Daiichi Kosho, a Japanese entertainment systems maker, says a malware incident at its contractor Nippon Columbia may have exposed records belonging to more than 8.7 million customers and employees. The company has not confirmed data theft or leaks.

Nippon Columbia Group (NCG) handles customer personal information for Daiichi Kosho. NCG told Daiichi Kosho on October 5 that it had found malware on an employee’s computer. It isolated the affected system the following day.

The records include information on 93,000 employees and 8,631,000 customers. The incident may affect customers of BIG ECHO, MEGA BIG, Karaoke CLUB DAM, Banana Club, B-GARAGE, and DK Dining. Daiichi Kosho operates 521 karaoke venues in Japan, including the Big Echo chain.

The company says the exposed data does not include passwords and that it has found no evidence of unauthorized use of loyalty points. Daiichi Kosho says its own systems were not breached. NCG reset passwords and other authentication credentials and is investigating the incident’s cause and scope, including whether data has appeared online. Daiichi Kosho advises customers to be cautious about the potential risk. An update on Friday provided no further information about a possible leak.