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Japanese police arrested a 15-year-old high school student from Saitama Prefecture for allegedly carrying out a sustained cyberattack against Bandai Channel, the anime streaming service operated by Bandai Namco Filmworks. Investigators said the suspect exploited a server-side flaw, analyzed network traffic, and used a custom malicious program reportedly developed with assistance from ChatGPT to gain unauthorized backend access, cancel 46,812 member registrations, and collect member data including email addresses and nicknames.
The attack disrupted Bandai Channel in November 2025 and forced the company to suspend the service for more than a month while it repaired systems, refunded subscribers, and implemented stronger security measures before restoring operations in December. Police said the teenager continued the activity after being blocked by repeatedly changing IP addresses, and later identified him through communication record analysis; the suspect reportedly admitted the allegations and said he acted out of technical curiosity rather than any grudge, while the company said it had not confirmed any public leak of personal data or secondary fraud.
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Japanese police arrested a 15-year-old student from Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture, in connection with the Bandai Channel cyberattack. Reports said the suspect admitted the allegations and told investigators he acted out of technical curiosity rather than a grudge.
In December 2025, Bandai Channel services were restored after Bandai Namco Filmworks implemented enhanced security measures. The company said it had not confirmed any public leak of personal data or secondary fraud.
The cyberattack forced Bandai Namco Filmworks to suspend all Bandai Channel services in November 2025. According to reporting, the platform remained offline for over a month while systems were repaired and subscribers were refunded.
During the November 2025 attack, fraudulent cancellation requests allegedly caused 46,812 member registrations to be canceled and member information such as email addresses and nicknames to be harvested. The disruption affected tens of thousands of subscribers.
In November 2025, a 15-year-old suspect allegedly exploited a server-side flaw and used a custom malicious program to gain unauthorized access to Bandai Channel systems. Investigators said the activity included repeated access attempts using changing IP addresses after initial blocking.
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A 16-year-old boy was arrested in Portadown, County Armagh, on suspicion of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act after a targeted cyberattack disrupted Northern Ireland’s centralized `C2K` school IT network. The Police Service of Northern Ireland said the suspect was later released while its cybercrime team continues investigating. The attack forced the Education Authority to take `C2K` offline to contain the incident, cutting off access to online teaching materials, assignments, exam revision resources, and communication tools used by most schools across the region. The Education Authority, working with service provider Capita and an incident response firm, said the breach affected a small number of schools and is believed to have compromised some personal data. Officials said the incident is currently assessed as contained, with no evidence of data corruption and recovery underway through password resets, added security measures, and phased restoration of services. Reconnection is being prioritized for pupils at critical academic stages, particularly those preparing for examinations, while authorities coordinate the investigation and any required notifications with the PSNI and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
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Crunchyroll disclosed that a breach at a third-party service provider exposed the email addresses of roughly **6.8 million to 7 million subscribers**. Reports said the incident affected subscriber contact data rather than payment information or passwords, with the anime streaming company indicating the compromise occurred outside its own core environment. The exposure raised phishing and account-targeting risks for a large portion of Crunchyroll’s user base, as attackers could use the leaked addresses to impersonate the company or deliver credential-harvesting messages. Coverage of the incident described it as a major supply-chain style data exposure tied to a vendor, underscoring how breaches at external partners can affect millions of customers even when a company’s internal systems are not directly penetrated.
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South Korean police charged two teenagers (identified as **Persons A and B**) for allegedly breaching Seoul’s public bike hire service **Ttareungyi** and exfiltrating user data. Authorities say the intrusion occurred in **June 2024** and resulted in the exposure of data on **4.62 million** individuals—about **90%** of the service’s roughly 5 million registered users—making it one of the larger recent consumer data thefts disclosed in South Korea. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Cyber Investigation Unit, **Person A** allegedly performed the access that enabled the theft, while **Person B** allegedly encouraged downloading the dataset; the two reportedly met on **Telegram** and bonded over an interest in information security. The stolen data reportedly included **user IDs, phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, dates of birth, genders, and weights**; the teens were arrested on suspicion of violating South Korea’s **Information and Communications Network Act** and referred to prosecutors, with detention requests reportedly denied due to their age.
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