Japanese police have arrested a 15-year-old high school student on suspicion of obstruction of business following alleged cyberattacks on Bandai Channel, a subscription-based anime and tokusatsu streaming service owned by Bandai Namco (source: TBS News Dig).
The boy is suspected of illegally accessing Bandai Channel’s servers multiple times since November 2025. Through the cyberattacks, he allegedly cancelled the subscriptions of over 46 thousand members, which caused Bandai Namco to temporarily suspend the service.
According to police reports, the student began teaching himself how to code on his own around the fourth grade of elementary school. At the time of the incident, when he was in the third year of junior high school, he discovered a vulnerability in Bandai Namco’s system by analyzing its communication data. He then used ChatGPT to create homebrew malware and launch the cyberattacks.
Having noticed the damage, Bandai Namco immediately took measures such as blocking his access, but he reportedly continued to cancel memberships by changing his IP address approximately 30 times.
Bandai Namco then consulted with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, who identified the student as a suspect through investigation of communication records and other evidence. The arrest was made in June this year, with the boy admitting to the allegations. He reportedly said he was not motivated by resentment towards the company, and simply did it because he was able to gain access to a large number of accounts.
Although the boy obtained members’ email addresses and usernames in the process, police say they haven’t discovered any instances of the information being misused.
