Teen Hacker Uses AI to Breach Japanese Internet Cafe Network – Lente.lv

A minor hacks an internet cafe

Tokyo police have arrested a 17-year-old boy from Osaka for cheating and accessing a protected data system using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The young man is suspected of accessing around 7.25 million user data records using the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.

According to media reports, the Tokyo police have issued a warrant for the youth’s arrest for violating the Law on Unauthorized Access and Interference with Business. The 17-year-old has been programming since elementary school, has won cyber security competitions and is competent to independently develop attack scripts (exploits).

AI as an aid to cyber attack

He used ChatGPT to hack the server of the internet cafe “Kaikatsu Frontier” app. Then, between January 18 and 20, he sent teams that “extracted” the club members’ data. As a result, the app crashed, stopped working temporarily and lost some functions.

There is currently no confirmation that the data has already been used. Even without the use of data, however, the youngster’s target was no ordinary small business with a small customer base. “Kaikatsu Club” is not only a network of Internet cafes, but also a karaoke, manga shop and other entertainment places.

By all accounts, his “deed” may have affected up to 7.29 million accounts, including names and addresses. According to other reports, the young man allegedly streamed the moment of the attack on social networks. He received malware advice from ChatGPT, bypassing direct questions about hacking.

Reflections on the opportunities and risks of MI

This possibility is alarming in itself, because a simple chatbot was enough for a young man to hack an entire network. The police already knew the identity of the young man. In November, he was arrested for buying Pokémon cards with someone else’s credit card.

It all looks like another case of available AI tools opening the door to “funny coding” (spontaneous, often non-professional programming). Security specialists have repeatedly emphasized that a significant part of AI-generated code contains vulnerabilities. Vaibkoding has reduced the need for programmers, but it has many problems, from security to increased production costs.

Despite this, the tool remains popular, and now we have a vivid example of how a teenager can create an exploit and go to test it at a big business.