A British court has ordered a teenage hacker into involuntary treatment. The cyber attack on game studio Rockstar Games was carried out in a frankly unbelievable way.
The GTA hacker was admitted to treatment for an indefinite period. Adobe Stock
Rockstar Games, known for its Grand Theft Auto game series, was the target of a massive data breach in the fall of 2022.
A hacker had gained access to Rockstar’s server, which contained footage from the upcoming GTA VI game. The author got his hands on a total of 90 videos that had been shot during the different stages of the game’s development.
Videos leaked online revealed that the game is set in Vice City, and that at least one of the playable characters is a woman. This information was confirmed by Rockstar earlier in December when the first trailer for GTA 6 was released.
The perpetrator was assigned to treatment
British Broadcasting Corporation BBC mixed Bloomberg say that the 18-year-old British Arion Kurtaj has been assigned to involuntary treatment for an indefinite period. This means that he will remain in the hospital for as long as the doctors deem the treatment necessary.
Kurtaj is said to have repeatedly behaved violently as a remand prisoner. According to the court, there have been dozens of incidents.
Based on a psychological assessment, Kurtaj, who has been diagnosed with a severe autism spectrum disorder, is “highly motivated” to continue his criminal activities when given the opportunity.
Hack Rockstar in an amazing way
According to the law, Kurtaj has been active in the international criminal organization Lapsus$, which specializes in data breaches, being one of its key personnel.
When attacking Rockstar, 16-year-old Kurtaj was suspected of hacking the component manufacturer Nvidia. At the time of the act, he was in the hotel under police supervision.
Even though Kurtaj’s computer was confiscated, it didn’t stop him from hacking into Rockstar’s servers. He is said to have used his hotel room’s TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick media player and his cell phone for the data breach.
After that, he broke into Rockstar’s Slack messaging platform, announced that he had hacked the company’s server, and blackmailed the company into revealing the information, eventually publishing it on an open discussion forum.
Rockstar told the court that the data breach indirectly cost it five million dollars, or more than 4.5 million euros, as well as thousands of working hours.