Updated Aug 10, 2026 — phishing steals your login, then trades without you
On August 10, 2026, Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) updated the alert it first issued on April 3, 2025. Criminals build fake websites that imitate real securities companies (phishing sites), harvest customers' login IDs and passwords there, then use those credentials to access internet trading services and place trades as a third party. The methods vary, but in many cases the attacker operates the victim's account, sells the stocks held in it, and uses the proceeds to buy small-cap shares in Japan or overseas — leaving those small-cap shares sitting in the victim's account. The damage figures the FSA publishes are provisional, based on the date of occurrence as reported by each securities company, so cases that have not yet come to light may exist. Note also that the published "sale amount" and "purchase amount" are cumulative totals of repeated unauthorized trades within the same account, and do not match the customer's actual loss. The FSA stresses that this can happen at any securities company, so every user of internet trading must act. Where password-only login used to be common, securities companies are now moving to make phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication such as passkeys mandatory.
For foreign residents, telling a genuine Japanese email or SMS from a fake one is hard, and a message that merely looks like it comes from a familiar sender can be enough to make you tap the link. The FSA's instruction is blunt: do not open links in emails or SMS even from senders you recognize, and reach your brokerage only through the correct URL you bookmarked in advance. Security settings screens and the inquiry desks you would call after an incident are mainly in Japanese, so it is safer to finish setting up multi-factor authentication and notification services while you have time to work through them calmly. The FSA Financial Services User Consultation Office is open weekdays 10:00–17:00 (Navi Dial 0570-016811; from IP phones, 03-5251-6811); outside those hours, check your brokerage's own desk hours in advance. Your account can be targeted while you are abroad or travelling, so keep login notifications switched on.
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