Tokyo police served an arrest warrant to a 17-year-old boy on Thursday for allegedly carrying out a cyberattack on the operator of the Kaikatsu Club internet cafe chain, investigative sources said.
The Metropolitan Police Department arrested the second-year high school student from the city of Osaka over an alleged violation of the law against unauthorized computer access and fraudulent obstruction of business.
According to the sources, the boy fraudulently obtained about 7.25 million sets of Kaikatsu Club membership information with a computer program he created using the ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot.
The boy is said to have skills strong enough to have won awards in cybersecurity competitions, as reported by TBS.
No misuse of the membership information has been confirmed. Kaikatsu Club cafes also offer comic books, karaoke and other services.
The boy is believed to have breached the server of an app managed by the internet cafe chain operator, Kaikatsu Frontier, and repeatedly sent fraudulent commands to obtain membership information between Jan. 18 and 20. Police believe he obstructed the company¡¯s business by causing the app to temporarily suspend some functions.
Aoki Holdings, the parent of Kaikatsu Frontier, announced in January that some 7.29 million sets of Kaikatsu Club members¡¯ private information might have been compromised.
The boy was arrested in November for allegedly purchasing Pokemon trading cards using someone else¡¯s credit card.
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