Teen accused of using ChatGPT to delete 46,000 anime accounts
Tokyo police on July 6 arrested a 15-year-old boy who has admitted to using AI-powered ChatGPT to build a program that forcibly deleted 46,000 accounts on anime streaming service “Bandai Channel,” sources said. The high school student from Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, is suspected of fraudulent obstruction of business. The student has reportedly admitted to the allegations, saying: “I created the source code for the withdrawal process myself. Since the processing was taking a long time, I asked ChatGPT and completed it in a different programming language.” Authorities said that on Nov. 4, 2025, the teen sent false commands to the servers of Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., the operator of Bandai Channel, triggering the mass deregistration of 46,812 accounts. The attack forced the company to temporarily suspend services. But even after the company took countermeasures, such as blocking the teen’s access, he allegedly changed his IP address 30 times to continue sending the false information. The suspect, who was a junior high school student at the time of the attack, had been arrested in June this year on suspicion of committing other computer-related crimes. He reportedly taught himself to code as an elementary school student and told investigators he held “no grudge” against Bandai Namco Filmworks, explaining that he simply “did it because there were many accounts I could log into.” The company consulted with the Metropolitan Police Department in November 2025. The following month, it announced that personal information from up to 1.36 million accounts—including email addresses, account balances and payment methods—was potentially leaked. Bandai Namco Filmworks said no secondary damage, such as the data being published online, has been confirmed. “We take this situation very seriously and will continue to conduct regular checks and strive to prevent any recurrence,” it said. A senior MPD investigator issued a warning to potential hackers. “Cyberspace is highly anonymous, and people may be tempted to commit crimes casually, but these actions can lead to grave consequences,” the investigator said.
Source: 朝日新聞