LONDON (Reuters) – A teenage member of the Lapsus$ hacking group was on Wednesday found to have hacked Uber and fintech firm Revolut then blackmailed the developers of best-selling videogame Grand Theft Auto after a trial at a London court.
Arion Kurtaj, 18, embarked on a solo cyber crime spree in September 2022, first targeting Revolut before hacking Uber two days later.
The teen then hacked Rockstar Games and threatened to release the planned Grand Theft Auto sequel’s source code in a Slack message sent to all Rockstar staff.
He was not fit to stand trial, so a jury at Southwark Crown Court was asked to find whether he committed the acts rather than deliver a guilty or not guilty verdict.
Kurtaj had previously hacked and blackmailed Britain’s biggest broadband provider BT Group and mobile operator EE in 2021 and later chip maker Nvidia Corp in February 2022.
The jury on Wednesday found Kurtaj committed 12 offences, including three counts of blackmail, two counts of fraud and six charges under the Computer Misuse Act.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by William James)
