According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the ministry is taking this step because an increasing number of government offices and companies have recently suffered from cyberattacks and data loss.
The bill would harmonize Japan’s domestic laws with the Convention on Cybercrime, a treaty signed by Japan in 2001. The treaty was drawn up by the Council of Europe with the participation of the council's observer states Canada, Japan, and China.
Under current law, the government is unable to directly punish people for creating internet viruses, the newspaper said. In 2008, the police and courts used the Copyright Law to prosecute a man for creating a computer virus and distributing it on the internet because he attached copyrighted animation to the virus.
In 2004 and 2005, the government also tried to push a bill through the Diet that would criminalize the creation of computer viruses. However, opposition parties objected to certain portions of the bill and it was not passed, the newspaper said.