hacker behind leaks sentenced to life in secure hospital

2023-12-22 14:18:01

The teenager is part of the international hacker group Lapsus$. Suffering from an autistic disorder, he was placed in forced hospitalization for an “indefinite period” by the British justice system.

Using a cell phone, a television and a remote control, he leaked more than 90 videos of the highly anticipated GTA 6 in September 2022. All under police surveillance and on parole, locked in a hospital.

Arion Kurtaj, 18, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for hacking Rockstar Games, the publisher of the famous video game, but also other global companies such as Uber and the chip manufacturer Nvidia, to the tune of $10 million. .

«If Rockstar does not contact me on Telegram within 24 hours, I will start publishing the source code.» It was with these words that Arion Kurtaj, a student at Oxford, entered the internal messaging system of the video game publisher in 2022. Kurtaj was declared medically unfit to testify during his trial, which lasted six weeks. The jury therefore had to determine whether he had committed the acts in question, not whether he had done so with criminal intent. He was ultimately sentenced to forced hospitalization for an “indefinite period”. The decision can, however, be revoked if doctors believe that he no longer represents a danger.

A situation which is not likely to happen soon, while the hacker would always represent a “high risk to the public”, wishing “return to cybercrime as soon as possible» and while he would have “was violent during his detention», Reports the BBC.

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“Digital bandits”

Another Lapsus$ member, aged 17, was convicted at the same trial. He notably worked alongside Kurtaj to hack the British telephone company BT/EE in order to steal its data. The goal ? Demanding a ransom of four million dollars, which was not paid.

The attacks by the group of hackers, of which the two teenagers are part, shocked the world of cybersecurity. This summer, they were the subject of a report by the American cyber defense agency. The “gang”, allegedly made up of mostly British and Brazilian teenagers, has been described as “digital bandits» before the British courts. It would have managed to insert itself into the internal systems of multinationals like Microsoft or the digital bank Revolut.

This is not the first time that publisher Rockstar Games has been in the sights of cybercriminals. Earlier this month, the GTA 6 phenomenon came under attack again. As a result, the release of the game’s trailer had to be brought forward. In four days, it had more than 128 million views on YouTube. At trial, Kurtaj’s defense argued that the success of the trailer proved that the piracy did not cause serious harm to the developer and asked that this be taken into account in sentencing. Rockstar Games instead said that the hack cost it $5 million.