Tokyo Police Arrest 18-Year-Old Over 7.24 Million-Command Kaikatsu Cyberattack
Updated
Updated · The Japan Times · Jul 9
Tokyo Police Arrest 18-Year-Old Over 7.24 Million-Command Kaikatsu Cyberattack
3 articles · Updated · The Japan Times · Jul 9
Summary
An 18-year-old Kaikatsu Frontier employee was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sending more than 7.24 million fraudulent commands to the company’s app server over three days in January 2025.
Investigators say the attack sought to obtain membership data and forced Kaikatsu Frontier to suspend some app functions; the suspect denies parts of the allegations.
The operation used a program developed with ChatGPT by a high school boy in Osaka, who was arrested in December and is now in juvenile court proceedings.
Police believe the code was shared in a social media group chat, drawing in others including a boy who was in sixth grade at the time; a 19-year-old man was also referred to prosecutors for compiling stolen data.
No misuse of the compromised membership information has been confirmed, though the suspect was separately arrested last month over an alleged eSIM registration under another person’s name.