Friday, December 22nd 2023
Autistic Lapsus$ Hacker Who Leaked GTA 6 Clips Sentenced to Life in a Hospital
18-year old Arion Kurtaj from Oxford, UK, was a key member of the international hacking gang Lapsus$, which, among several cases of cyber crime against tech giants, has been behind the recent leak of the Grand Theft Auto VI video clips, ahead of the official trailer by Rockstar Games. Over the years, Lapsus$ hit big tech companies, including Rockstar Games, NVIDIA, and Uber, with their exploits assessed to have caused these companies about $10 million in losses. In an interesting twist to the case, the Kurtaj was deemed by doctors unfit to stand trial as he is severely autistic, and so the jury in the case was asked to determine only whether or not he committed the acts of cyber crime, and not if he did so with criminal intent.
The judge hearing the case said Kurtaj's skills and desire to commit cyber crime meant he remained a high risk to the public. While on bail from his previous arrest for hacking NVIDIA and UK telecommunication giants EE and BT, and in police protection in a hotel, Kurtaj pulled off his most daring hack of breaching Rockstar Games, using only an Amazon Firestick, his hotel's TV, and a mobile phone. He stole 90 clips of unreleased footage from gameplay of Grand Theft Auto VI. He also broke into Rockstar's internal Slack channel, threatening to leak the game's source code if the studio didn't contact him within 24 hours. He was immediately re-arrested and in lock-up until his trial. Rockstar Games told the court that it cost the company $5 million to recover from the hack, in staff billable hours.
Another Lapsus$ hacker from the UK, who is 17 and hence cannot be named, was found guilty in the same trial and sentence to an 18-month long youth rehabilitation order, including intense supervision and a ban from using VPNs. This individual worked with Kurtaj and other Lapsus$ members to hack NVIDIA, EE, and BT, to steal data and demanding ransoms of $4 million in crypto currency, which were not paid. Kurtaj is now sentenced to life in hospital, a politically correct term used to mean that he is institutionalized, until Doctors deem him no longer a danger.
Source:
BBC
The judge hearing the case said Kurtaj's skills and desire to commit cyber crime meant he remained a high risk to the public. While on bail from his previous arrest for hacking NVIDIA and UK telecommunication giants EE and BT, and in police protection in a hotel, Kurtaj pulled off his most daring hack of breaching Rockstar Games, using only an Amazon Firestick, his hotel's TV, and a mobile phone. He stole 90 clips of unreleased footage from gameplay of Grand Theft Auto VI. He also broke into Rockstar's internal Slack channel, threatening to leak the game's source code if the studio didn't contact him within 24 hours. He was immediately re-arrested and in lock-up until his trial. Rockstar Games told the court that it cost the company $5 million to recover from the hack, in staff billable hours.
61 Comments on Autistic Lapsus$ Hacker Who Leaked GTA 6 Clips Sentenced to Life in a Hospital
They'll be torturing him with ABT and other pseudo-psychological "treatments".
If they wanted to stop the "behaviour", they should give him a goddamn JOB - paying him Every Dollar his skills are worth doing what he's clearly Extremely good at.
But no, can't possibly help the neurodivergent folk thrive.a "Mental hospital" for ASD folk, is more often a torture facility than help. ESPECIALLY in the UK.
It's disgusting.
If he was an arsonist who would never stop burning businesses down you'd expect them to be locked up until they no longer pose a threat. Just because the attacks and damage to businesses is online doesn't make it any less dangerous/damaging to businesses and people's livelihoods. He's lucky they don't send him to normal prison where the general population would go for him as an outlier.
Cyberpunk is coming sooner rather then later, we are doomed.
Yeah that's whack
But I'm sure UK gov has plans for this genius so I doubt he'll end up like many other poor souls that aren't as functioning as he.
They might teach him how not to be caught :laugh:
The life sentence is ridiculous though.
Even if he stole 5B$, a 20 year one would be ok.
But 10M damage? Really?!!!
That's a logistical error for them!!