Japan's popular anime streaming platform "Bandai Channel" temporarily suspended services late last year following a cyberattack. The Metropolitan Police Department recently announced the arrest of a 15-year-old high school student on suspicion of obstruction of business. The teen admitted to using ChatGPT to write the malicious program used in the attack.
According to news reports, police investigations revealed that the teen was a third-year junior high school student at the time of the incident in November last year (2025) and is suspected of illegally logging into other members' accounts.
The cyberattack resulted in 46,812 member accounts being terminated without the account holders' knowledge. Due to the unusually large number of cancellations in a short period, Bandai Namco Filmworks, the platform's operator, immediately suspended related services and initiated response measures and system investigations.
During police questioning, the teen confessed to the crime. The teen had been exposed to computers since fourth grade and had accumulated considerable IT knowledge through self-study over the years.
Regarding the motive, the teen told police that they held no resentment or dissatisfaction towards the affected company. The decision to use AI to write the program and launch the attack was purely out of personal interest and a technical experiment.
During the unauthorized intrusion, the teen also successfully obtained some member-related data. However, the Metropolitan Police Department emphasized that, as of now, there has been no evidence of this leaked personal information being further misused or resold externally.
Following last year's incident, Bandai Namco Filmworks enhanced its system security to prevent similar occurrences and has since resumed normal operations.
via： Livedoornews