[ITmedia Business Online] Softbank President Miyagawa ``Honestly, I'm exhausted'' 700 million cyber attacks per month, what is the sense of crisis revealed at the financial results presentation?

SoftBank announced its consolidated financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2027 on November 9th. Sales increased 11.7% year on year to 3,798.7 billion yen, operating income increased 2.1% year on year to 642.1 billion yen, and net income increased 4.5% year on year to 364.5 billion yen, all of which were new record highs.

As a result, the company's full-year earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2027 has been revised upward to 7.9 trillion yen in sales, 1.16 trillion yen in operating income, and 610 billion yen in net income.

The company's performance was driven by its enterprise business, which includes communication services for corporations, cloud services, security, and AI services. Sales increased 11.8% year on year to 538.9 billion yen, of which sales in the "Cloud/AI" field, which includes AI calculation platforms, increased 36.7% year on year. Operating income increased 19.9% ​​year on year to 124.8 billion yen. The AI ​​data center in Tomakomai City, Hokkaido is on track to open in 2026.

The consumer business, which includes mobile services and electricity services, had sales of 1,602.5 billion yen (up 8.6% year on year), the media and e-commerce business, which includes advertising-related services on ``Yahoo!

The financial results briefing also focused on the company's response to a series of cyber attacks.

More than 7,000 companies have signed up for ``Patching as a Service,'' a security service provided by the company that helps prevent vulnerabilities in IT systems. President Junichi Miyagawa points out that it is important to quickly and continuously carry out the three cycles of diagnosing vulnerabilities, applying patches, and confirming normal operation.

Patching as a Service utilizes AI technology from U.S. company OpenAI. Although the application of patches has been automated, the work to check whether it is operating properly is still done manually, and development is progressing toward full automation.

"The number of attacks using high-performance AI continues to increase every week. The ability to create intrusion routes and the speed required to carry out crimes are becoming more powerful every day. Every time a new AI model is released, a new, previously unknown vulnerability is discovered, creating the risk that a system that was supposed to have been protected will be attacked again. As attacker AI continues to evolve, we as defenders must also continue to evolve with AI." (President Miyagawa)