Tag Archive for: GTA

GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order

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Arion Kurtaj

18-year-old Arion Kurtaj was a key member of the notorious Lapsus$ cyber-crime gang

An 18-year-old hacker who leaked clips of a forthcoming Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

Arion Kurtaj from Oxford, who is autistic, was a key member of international gang Lapsus$.

The gang’s attacks on tech giants including Uber, Nvidia and Rockstar Games cost the firms nearly $10m.

The judge said Kurtaj’s skills and desire to commit cyber-crime meant he remained a high risk to the public.

He will remain at a secure hospital for life unless doctors deem him no longer a danger.

The court heard that Kurtaj had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage.

Doctors deemed Kurtaj unfit to stand trial due to his acute autism so the jury was asked to determine whether or not he committed the alleged acts – not if he did so with criminal intent.

A mental health assessment used as part of the sentencing hearing said he “continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated.”

The jury was told that while he was on bail for hacking Nvidia and BT/EE and in police protection at a Travelodge hotel, he continued hacking and carried out his most infamous hack.

Despite having his laptop confiscated, Kurtaj managed to breach Rockstar, the company behind GTA, using an Amazon Firestick, his hotel TV and a mobile phone.

Kurtaj stole 90 clips of the unreleased and hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6.

He broke into the company’s internal Slack messaging system to declare “if Rockstar does not contact me on Telegram within 24 hours I will start releasing the source code”.

He then posted the clips and source code on a forum under the username TeaPotUberHacker.

He was rearrested and detained until his trial.

Earlier this month, the trailer for GTA 6 was released clocking up 128m views on YouTube in just 4 days.

In sentencing hearings, Kurtaj’s defence team argued that the success of the game’s trailer indicated that Kurtaj’s hack had not caused serious harm to the game developer and asked that this be factored into the sentencing.

But Her Honour Judge Lees said that there were real victims and real harm…

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Alleged GTA 6 hacker pleads not guilty to computer misuse, remains detained by police

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Published: 2022-09-28T07:15:00

Updated: 2022-09-28T06:47:32

The teenager suspected to be behind the recent GTA 6 leaks has pleaded not guilty to the hacking charges, and is now being held in a youth crime detention center.

According to Eurogamer, the 17-year-old who is suspected to be behind the GTA 6 hack has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The City of London Police’s Cyber Crime Unit spoke to Eurogamer about the situation at hand.

City of London detective inspector Michael O’Sullivan issued a statement to the outlet, confirming that he had appeared in court over the past weekend.

“The 17-year-old who appeared at Highbury Corner Youth Court on 24th September has pleaded guilty to breaching his bail conditions and not guilty to computer misuse.” O’Sullivan then revealed that following the court hearing, “the teenager has been remanded to a youth detention center.”

Prosecutor Valerie Benjamin said in court that the suspect had used a phone to hack into companies and was “holding them to ransom” to gain access to illegally obtained software, Bloomberg Law reports. The suspect was charged with two counts of break of bail conditions as well as two counts of computer misuse. 

The judge referred the case to a higher court where it’ll be heard with a “similar” matter at a later date. On Sunday, September 18, one of the biggest leaks in gaming history took place, with Rockstar Games’ upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 title having over 90 videos and images shared online – including detailed footage of the game.

On Thursday, September 22, the suspected hacker was arrested by the City of London police. Since the incident took place, Rockstar has addressed the security breach, confirming that the leaked footage was real and voicing how “extremely disappointed” the dev team is “to have any…

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GTA 6 Hacker Pleads Not Guilty to Computer Misuse Charges

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The City of London Police has confirmed that the GTA 6 hacker has pled not guilty to charges of computer misuse. However, he has pled guilty to breaching bail conditions, which police said he violated as reported on Sunday. The police’s Cyber Crime Unit revealed that the 17-year-old teenager (identified only as A.K. for legal reasons) appeared in court over the weekend.

GTA 6 hacker currently detained in youth detention center

gta 6 hacker

City of London detective inspector Michael O’Sullivan confirmed the details in a statement to Eurogamer:

The 17-year-old who appeared at Highbury Corner Youth Court on 24th September has pleaded guilty to breaching his bail conditions and not guilty to computer misuse. The teenager has been remanded to a youth detention center.

The charge of computer misuse is a bit ironic, considering the teenager most likely used his computer exactly as he intended. At any rate, if the suspect is convicted, it will be interesting to see what his sentence will be, considering that he was accused of being the leader of hacking group Lapsus$ in March when he was then 16 years old.

The FBI has yet to issue a statement, though one is likely to follow after additional arrests of other members of the hacking group, who are claimed to have assisted the suspect in his hack of Rockstar Games. Apparently, the teenager is only one of seven suspected of breaching high-profile companies. Journalist Matthew Keys says that the the hacker was responsible for the security breach at Uber. The police was able to track down the suspect due to him using similar hacking techniques in breaching Microsoft, Nvidia, and Okta.

Last week, Rockstar equated the hack to just “a network intrusion” and there wouldn’t be any “long-term effect” on the development of their ongoing projects, including GTA 6.

In other news, the Kena Bridge of Spirits anniversary update comes with a host of new features, and details of the Far Cry 6 GOTY Edition and upgrade pass have been leaked online.

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Everything we know about the GTA 6 hacking scandal

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ROCKSTAR Games, developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, experienced a hack where almost a hundred videos of GTA 6 were stolen and illegally uploaded to the internet.

The case is still ongoing, but here is everything we know about the hack so far:

The image released by police to announce the arrest of a teen on suspicion of hacking.

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The image released by police to announce the arrest of a teen on suspicion of hacking.Credit: City of London Police / Twitter

How did someone steal videos of GTA 6?

Following the leak Rockstar released a statement about the events.

It reads: “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our system, including early development footage from the upcoming Grand Theft Auto.”

The company has teamed up with tech company Uber, which experienced a hack earlier this month.

Uber released a statement saying: “There were reports over the weekend that this same actor breached video game maker Rockstar Games.”

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The companies involved the FBI and US Department of Justice in the investigation.

Uber was compromised when a hacker obtained the password for a company contractor’s Slack account.

Slack is a messaging service that a number of companies use to contact employees.

After numerous attempts, the contractor accepted the login attempt via the two-factor authentication system.

From here, they were able to access other employees’ accounts with higher permissions.

It is unclear whether they used similar means to bypass Rockstar Games’ security also.

Who is the GTA 6 hacker?

To date, no one has been convicted of the security breach on Rockstar Games.

However, City of London Police announced that they arrested a 17-year-old from Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking offences.

While the police have not confirmed that the arrest is in connection to the Rockstar case, journalist Matthew Keys reported that sources close to him connected the two.

The teen was held in custody and appeared before Highbury Corner Youth Court on Saturday, September 24.

He has been charged with two counts of breach of bail conditions, and two counts of computer misuse.

If convicted, how long will the alleged GTA 6 hacker spend in jail?

Large-scale hacking cases involving teens…

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