TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested an 18-year-old company employee for his alleged role in a major cyberattack on the official app of popular internet cafe chain Kaikatsu Club in January of last year, reports TBS News (July 9).
The suspect, a resident of Katsushika Ward, is facing charges of fraudulent obstruction of business. Police allege that the teen — who was a 16-year-old high school sophomore at the time — conspired with accomplices to illegally access the system, paralyzing parts of the app and disrupting the daily operations of its management company, Kaikatsu Frontier.
According to investigative sources, the youth is a self-taught cybersecurity prodigy who began studying coding in the third grade and possessed enough knowledge to win awards at tech competitions.
Network of minors
The juvenile hacker ring reportedly met on the messaging platform Discord, an app widely used by gamers. Investigators believe the group utilized the generative AI tool ChatGPT to write the malicious program used to execute the cyberattack, allowing them to illegally extract the personal data of more than 7.24 million Kaikatsu Club members.
Police previously arrested another high school boy, then 16, on similar charges of fraudulent obstruction of business, and authorities are continuing to investigate the network of minors involved.
During police questioning, the 18-year-old suspect partially denied the allegations against him.
To date, authorities have not confirmed any cases of the massive trove of stolen member information being misused.
