Cosmic rays are causing an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 malfunctions in domestic network communication devices in Japan every year, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. found recently.
Most so-called soft errors, or temporary malfunctions, in the firm's hardware are automatically corrected via safety devices, but experts said in some cases they may have led to disruptions.
It is the first time the actual scale of soft errors in domestic information infrastructures has become evident.