Hackers Breach Japan's Missile, Nuclear Plants

The unknown hackers, suspected of originating from China, breached 80 Mitsubishi Heavy computers with eight types of malware, targeting the company's nuclear power, submarine and missile plants.

"We can't rule out small possibilities of further information leakage but so far crucial data about our products or technologies have been kept safe", said a Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman, adding the company first noticed the attack on August 11.

The cyber-attacks come at a time when worldwide governments are drafting plans to handle online security breaches as serious military threats.

For example, the Pentagon's five-point cyber-security initiative promised to treat future hacks against vital government infrastructure as physical acts of war, suggesting the wave of breaches are expected to continue. The U.S. anticipate future hacks may target worldwide institutions after a five-year-long operation, dubbed "Shady RAT", infiltrated several countries' governments.

In response, the U.S. renewed its mutual defense treaty with Australia to include a provision for combatting cyber-attacks.

Japan may follow U.S. lead by taking a similar offensive approach against hackers in order to stem breaches of government facilities such as the attack on Mitsubishi Heavy.

Over the last year, the U.S. saw hacks on Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon too, along with online attacks against police forces in Arizona and Florida. The International Monetary Fund also experienced a phishing attack that left it scrambling to restore investor confidence.

These high-profile attacks are inspiring the Pentagon and FBI to enlist people with solid skills to shore up the government's future virtual defenses against harmful attacks. FBI officials even went as far as to recruit potential employees at this year's DefCon hacking conference.

Japan saw its citizens access Sony's websites after the Tokyo-based company insisted they were safe. Not long after, hackers hit its secure websites, compromising millions of accounts.