Joe Tidy reports:
A court has found an 18-year-old from Oxford was a part of an international cyber-crime gang responsible for a hacking spree against major tech firms
Arion Kurtaj was a key member of the Lapsus$ group which hacked the likes of Uber, Nvidia and Rockstar Games.A court heard Kurtaj leaked clips of the unreleased Grand Theft Auto 6 game while on bail in a Travelodge hotel.The audacious attacks by Lapsus$ in 2021 and 2022 shocked the cyber security world.The group from the UK, and allegedly Brazil, was described in court as “digital bandits”.The gang – thought to mostly be teenagers – used con-man like tricks as well as computer hacking to gain access to multinational corporations such as Microsoft, the technology giant and digital banking group Revolut.During their spree the hackers regularly celebrated their crimes publicly and taunted victims on the social network app Telegram in English and Portuguese.The trial was held in Southwark Crown Court in London for seven weeks.Kurtaj is autistic and psychiatrists deemed him not fit to stand trial so he did not appear in court to give evidence.The jury were asked to determine whether or not he did the acts alleged – not if he did it with criminal intent.Another 17-year-old who is also autistic was convicted for his involvement in the activities of the Lapsus$ gang but can not be named because of his age.
Read more about three hacking sprees at Yahoo!