15-Year-Old Saitama Student Uses ChatGPT to Mass-Cancel 46,812 Bandai Channel Subscriptions, Triggering Service Outage and Data Breach Concerns
A 15-year-old student from Saitama Prefecture has been arrested for orchestrating a sophisticated cyber attack that resulted in the mass cancellation of 46,812 user subscriptions on the popular anime streaming service Bandai Channel, operated by Bandai Namco Filmworks.
According to Japanese police, the teenager developed a custom program capable of simulating legitimate user requests to delete accounts. The original code, written while he was still in middle school, processed requests too slowly, prompting the student to consult ChatGPT and rewrite the script in a more efficient programming language.
On November 4, 2025, the optimized program was used to flood the service’s servers with fraudulent deletion commands, causing the platform to automatically terminate tens of thousands of accounts and forcing the company to suspend operations temporarily.
When Bandai Namco Filmworks attempted to block the attacker’s access, the student evaded detection by rotating his IP address more than 30 times, demonstrating that the assault was deliberate and sustained rather than accidental.
Investigators later discovered that the same individual had already come to police attention in June, when he was detained in connection with other computer crimes. During questioning, the teenager stated that he held no grudge against the company and had acted simply to gain access to a large number of user accounts.
Company Response and Data Protection Concerns
Bandai Namco Filmworks filed a formal complaint with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in November 2025. In December, the company publicly acknowledged a possible compromise of personal information belonging to up to 1.36 million accounts, including email addresses, account balances, and payment details.
Despite the scale of the potential exposure, the firm confirmed that no evidence of data publication or secondary misuse has been detected. The company stated it takes the incident seriously and will implement regular security audits to prevent recurrence.
Police officials warned that the perceived anonymity of the internet can create a false sense of impunity, noting that such actions carry serious legal consequences regardless of the perpetrator’s age.
Related articles
Notion Confirms Exposure of AI Assistant Transcripts After Fireworks AI Breach
Notion has confirmed that a security incident at Fireworks AI exposed conversation transcripts from its Notion AI assistant, affecting less than 1% of customer workspaces. The breach occurred because Fireworks handled classification tasks for the Insights feature and served open-weight models. Notion stated that its own systems were not compromised. The timeline shows initial notification on November 2, 2026, followed by disconnection of systems on November 3 and confirmation of customer data exposure on November 8. Most transcripts lacked author or workspace attribution and did not include tool call results, though user-entered content could still identify individuals or organizations. Fireworks attributed the intrusion to a financially motivated group engaged in LLMjacking, involving theft of credentials to hijack AI models for illicit use.
Beget Outlines Four-Stage Recovery of Servers After Cyberattack Destroys Cloud Infrastructure
Russian hosting provider Beget has provided an update on restoring its infrastructure following a destructive cyberattack that occurred on the night of November 2, 2026. Attackers gained access to the management contour and executed wiping scripts, resulting in total data loss across VPS, S3, and Kubernetes environments while file-level backups of VPS remained intact. The company is now recovering dozens of virtual hosting servers from backups in parallel using multiple data streams. Each affected server undergoes a structured four-stage restoration process that includes OS installation, environment setup, data loading, and gradual reactivation of thousands of customer sites. Beget has already brought more than 18,000 websites back online, with 66 servers currently in the recovery pipeline. The Coordination Center for .RU and .RF domains has temporarily suspended Beget’s registrar accreditation, preventing new registrations during the suspension period.
Beget Loses Accreditation as .RU and .РФ Domain Registrar After Cyberattack
Following a cyberattack on November 2, Russian domain registrar and hosting provider Beget has had its accreditation temporarily suspended by the Coordination Center for .RU and .РФ domains. The company can no longer register new domains in the .RU, .РФ, and .SU zones or accept transfers from other registrars. Beget must continue supporting all domains registered before the suspension, and expiration dates have been postponed by agreement with the Coordination Center and RosNIIROS to prevent any loss of domains. The incident stems from attackers gaining access to the management infrastructure and deploying wiping scripts. Partial functionality has been restored in the control panel, but full domain management features for the affected zones will return only after accreditation is reinstated. No specific recovery timeline has been announced.
Beget Rebuilds Cloud Infrastructure After Destructive Cyberattack Wipes VPS Backups
Beget suffered a severe cyberattack that allowed threat actors to access the management layer of its entire cloud architecture and execute wiping scripts. The incident destroyed cloud infrastructure and left backup copies of VPS files available to only half of the affected users. Internal systems were also hit, breaking links between customer accounts and services, forcing the provider to reconstruct ownership records. Hosting services have recovered more than 60 percent, while full cloud restoration timelines remain unknown. The attack disrupted BelkaCar’s car-sharing application, which relied on Beget for backend connectivity and has since migrated to another provider.