A government panel on Tuesday compiled a final draft of cyber-attack countermeasures, including a proposal to boost the capabilities of the Self-Defense Forces to tackle high-level strikes possibly conducted by foreign governments.
"We need to quickly respond not only to enhance national security and crisis management but to ensure stability in people's lives and economic development," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the panel meeting. "We aim to create a secure cyberspace suitable for a globally top-level IT state."
The draft listed measures the government should take through fiscal 2015, including setting up a "cyberguard" within the SDF with expert personnel and advanced equipment.
The National Information Security Center, which oversees information protection, will be reorganized with broader powers and expert staff as the Cyber Security Center around the fiscal year ending March 2016.
The beefed-up public sector is also expected to give the private sector a boost, with the industry — currently valued at around ¥700 billion ($6.8 billion) — doubling by 2020.
Businesses, meanwhile, will be allowed to analyze communication records to address increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks, while securing the constitutionally guaranteed secrecy of communications, the draft said.