Yasukuni Shrine [123RF]
Yasukuni Shrine [123RF]

The website of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which has drawn criticism for glorifying Japan's wartime aggression, was hacked, leaking personal information of about 14,500 members.

The shrine announced Thursday that its online shop — which accepts orders for amulets and other shrine goods — had confirmed that a hacking attack on Oct. 28 led to the unauthorized disclosure of members' personal information, according to Yonhap.

The probe found that approximately 14,500 records had been leaked, including members' names, email addresses and account passwords.

However, the shrine said there was no confirmed leakage of credit card numbers, expiration dates, dates of birth, home addresses or phone numbers.

The shrine said it would take the site offline for now while continuing to investigate the cause, and urged users who use the same password across other web services to change it immediately.

"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and concern caused to our users," the shrine said.

Yasukuni Shrine enshrines about 2.466 million war dead, including 14 Class-A war criminals from the Pacific War such as Tojo Hideki. Enshrinement — known as "goshi" — involves registering a person's name in a ledger rather than interring remains or a memorial tablet.

The Japanese government provided the shrine with the names of Korean war dead who were forced to fight in the Pacific War, in addition to those of Japanese soldiers killed in the conflict.

As a result, more than 20,000 Koreans were enshrined alongside Class-A war criminals. The Japanese government and the shrine have refused to honor bereaved families' demands that the Koreans be removed from the registry.


husn7@heraldcorp.com