2023-07-14 15:21:39
The trial involving several cybercrime cases including the Grand Theft Auto VI leaks is currently underway in England, involving two individuals including an 18-year-old young man identified and prosecuted on a total of 12 counts.
Information now public
Thanks to the lifting of a reporting restriction by UK Crown Court dated Tuesday July 11, 2023, we learn the identity of the main defendant in the Grand Theft Auto VI leak case. It is therefore a young man aged 18 called Arion Kurtaj. Charged jointly with another 17-year-old at the Royal Court of Justice of the United Kingdomhe is accused of being part of the group of hackers nicknamed ” Fall“, considered by British justice as being one of the “key players“blackmail, fraud and” Computer Misuse Act under the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990.
The two young men are facing a criminal trial in London in which prosecutors told the jury that Arion Kurtaj hacked into the systems of Revolut, Uber and Rockstar Games last September. Actions perpetrated while he was already free on bail for other charges.
« Back to hack Slack »
According to prosecutors, Arion Kurtaj, along with other unknown members of the group Fall, are held responsible for stealing the source code of the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto series currently in development and for distributing 90 video clips showing development phrases from the game in question. For this, the young man would have pretended to be a subcontractor of the company following an intrusion into the internal server of a Rockstar Toronto team via the proprietary collaborative communication platform Slack and would have disclosed the gain of his hacking on forums while demanding payment of a ransom.
At this time, Arion Kurtaj has been deemed unfit to participate in his trial for medical reasons. This means that a jury will only decide whether he is responsible for the alleged crimes, not whether he is guilty of them. He will also avoid jail time if found guilty. The trial is expected to last 8 weeks.
Many are the victims
Here is the non-exhaustive list of companies that have been victims of the actions of the group Lapsus$ (leaks, ransoms, blackmail…) :
Uber
Revolut
Nvidia
Ubisoft
T-Mobile
Samsung
Rockstar Games
With his accomplice, Arion Kurtaj allegedly attacked the telephone operators EE and BT Group between July and September 2021, thus seeking to extort 4 million euros. Several months later, hackers attacked the giant Nvidiaattempting to blackmail the company by threatening to disclose confidential data. In September 2022, they targeted the online banking company Revolutstealing the confidential data of 5000 customers and causing more $3 million in damages to the society Uber. Several thousand gigabytes of leaks offered to the highest bidders…
Shortly following, the group tackled Rockstar Games…
attack style
LAPSU$ is a group that began with an attack on the Brazilian government in late 2021, exposing the COVID-19 vaccination records of millions of Brazilians. Their attack methods are incredibly brazen, with no attempt to cover their tracks. Going so far as to announce the attacks in advance on their Telegram channel followed by more than 40,000 subscribers and even offering regular polls on the next company they want to hit.
But they also made some serious miscalculations, including a baffling misunderstanding regarding Nvidia’s corporate firewalls. Regularly described as competent and incompetent at the same time, which is why some claim that this international cybercrime operation is run by a teenager. Since their first breach in December 2021, the group has been making waves in the cybercriminal community.
Although it is a very dangerous threat actor, it is not technically a ransomware group. Ransomware groups create their own ransomware strains that all follow similar infiltration and attack methods. However, LAPSU$ takes advantage of the main weakness of any organization: the human flaw = Social Engineering !
And now ?
The trial has only just begun. Even if this dear Arion Kurtaj has been evaluated by psychiatrists as not being fit to stand trial, it is obvious that the lawyers of Take-Two Interactive, Blank Rome LLP, will use all their resources so that the British justice decides to harshly punish the author of the biggest leak of confidential data in the history of video games.
To be continued…
We wish you a good weekend on Rockstar Mag’!
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#Rebound #affair #leaks #GTA
