The ransomware attack on Asahi marks the point where detect-and-respond stops being enough, argues Shigeru Kitamura, Japan’s former National Security Adviser. His case for preemptive defense against ransomware is a shift from risk avoidance to active risk management: AI systems that anticipate and neutralise threats before activation, across the billions of logs modern environments generate daily. He cites IBM research putting a single breach’s average cost above 700 million yen. Three principles hold it together — accurate asset information, deliberate vulnerability simulation, and phased deployment. SimSpace’s high-precision cyber ranges appear as shared training infrastructure already used across the US Department of Defense and financial institutions. Human oversight stays central: leadership must still explain what the AI decided.
