Japanese police arrested a 15-year-old student suspected of hacking Bandai Channel and causing more than 46,000 customer subscriptions to be canceled. Investigators say he analyzed the service's network traffic, found a server-side flaw, and used a program reportedly built with ChatGPT to send fraudulent requests to Bandai Channel's servers in November 2025. The attack disrupted the streaming platform for more than a month, and police say he kept abusing the flaw by rotating IP addresses after the company tried to block him.
Why it matters: This was not a minor prank: it disrupted a paid online service for weeks and directly affected tens of thousands of customers. Companies running consumer web services should review server-side request validation and abuse controls, while affected users should check account status and billing history.
2026.07.06
100% relevant
This article appears to be the first tracked item establishing the underlying event: the arrest and police details tied to the November 2025 Bandai Channel service-disruption attack.
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