Yokohama City: files of its waste sorting chatbot Eo were tampered with, redirecting users to a suspicious site imitating a shopping site

1. 2021-02-04

   Files on the chatbot server were tampered with. Starting the chatbot from the city's smartphone site moved users from the loading screen to an unrelated site. [3]

2. 2021-02-07

   A citizen wrote by mail that the page connected automatically to a site unrelated to the city. [2] [3]

3. 2021-02-08 14:00

   The city confirmed the problem and paused the service. It began investigating the cause with NTT Docomo. [2]

4. 2021-02-09

   The city announced the pause. [2]

5. 2021-02-17 12:00

   The investigation of the cause and repairs finished, and the service resumed. [1] [2]

The service is a chatbot that uses AI to explain in conversation how to dispose of waste, provided by Yokohama City under a contract with NTT Docomo. An access rights setting error on the server managed by NTT Docomo let a third party tamper with files. The destination imitated a large shopping site and advertised iPhones at special prices, and appears to be a phishing site meant to steal personal data or money. [2] [3]

The city set the access rights correctly and consolidated several servers into one to improve safety. No concrete damage to citizens has been found. [1] [2]