Police to Arrest 17-Yr-Old over Cyberattack on Net Cafe Operator

Tokyo, Dec. 4 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo police plan to serve an arrest warrant on a 17-year-old boy as early as Thursday for allegedly carrying out a cyberattack on the operator of the Kaikatsu Club internet cafe chain, investigative sources said. The Metropolitan Police Department is set to charge the second-year high school student from the western Japan city of Osaka with 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. 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 Inc., 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 Inc., the parent of Kaikatsu Frontier, announced in January that some 7.29 million sets of Kaikatsu Club members’ private information may have been compromised. The boy was arrested in November for allegedly purchasing trading cards featuring Pocket Monsters, or Pokemon, using someone else’s credit card. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]