In an attempt to improve Japan’s cyber security readiness for the 2020 Olympics, the Japanese government announced it will conduct a national survey to explore security breaches by hacking into 200 million IoT devices

Based on reports published by Forbes and other media, Japan’s Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, Masashi Ishida, has approved an amendment related to connected devices. According to the amendment, which is a part of a governmental security survey, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology Law, will attempt to hack connected devices at homes and offices in Japan, in order to test their vulnerabilities. The operators of the survey will randomly hack into about 200 million devices and create a list of vulnerabilities, which they will share with the owners of the breached devices as well as their Internet service providers (ISPs) for them to improve their safeguards. This move is done in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, as part of the Japanese government’s efforts to deal with cybersecurity threats.