Japanese Energy Firm Loses Drive with Data of 10.9 Million Clients

Kyushu Electric Power disclosed that a hard drive containing personally identifiable information for about 10.9 million customers has gone missing from a facility and was not recovered; the media reportedly contained names, addresses, account numbers, billing and usage information. The report emphasizes this as a large-scale physical data breach, raises questions about encryption-at-rest and chain-of-custody controls, and notes likely regulatory reporting and customer-notification obligations under Japan’s APPI while recommending encryption, stricter media handling, and customer vigilance against phishing.