GMO Internet, the operator of Japanese crypto exchange GMO Coin, has announced the establishment of a “Group Information Security Audit Office” in order to develop stronger security measures to protect customer information, according to a March 30 press release.
GMO Coin was one of the crypto exchanges that was sent a business improvement order by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) after a series of on-site inspections prompted by the January hack of crypto exchange Coincheck.
GMO Internet’s new group, run by “knowledgeable security expert” Takeshi Miyazaki, will include an external advisor on security as well. The establishment of this group aims to “protect important customer information from increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks by our highly secured countermeasures and pursue to improve group information security literacy and foster security personnel.”
A little over a week ago, on March 22, GMO Coin posted on their website that they had submitted their FSA-requested business improvement plan to the Kanto Local Finance Bureau.
GMO Coin added that they “sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and worry that our customers and stakeholders have incurred”, adding that:
“We deeply reflect on taking this administrative punishment seriously [...] and steadily improve the system risk management system by implementing [an] improvemen[t] plan, so that we can offer service[s] [so] that customers can feel secure and safe.”
GMO Internet is also involved in crypto mining, having announced in September of last year that they planned on cornering 6 percent of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining market in 2018.
In the wake of the stricter regulatory supervision in Japan, two crypto exchanges decided to shut down earlier this week rather than work with regulators for compliance. Crypto exchange Binance has also taken its services away from Japan, announcing a new office in Malta, after receiving a warning from the FSA about the exchange’s unregistered status.