According to a former Reuters journalist, the investigation is being conducted in conjunction with the FBI.
A 17-year-old man was apprehended in Oxfordshire(opens in new tab) as part of an ongoing police hacking investigation. According to sources questioned by ex-Reuters journalist Matt Keys, the arrest is directly related to the recent Rockstar Games hack and subsequent historic leak of GTA 6 materials (opens in new tab), and also possibly last week’s Uber intrusion.
The news comes merely a few days after Uber revealed that the FBI was searching into the hack on its systems, which the Rockstar hacker also assumed credit for (opens in new tab). Thus according to Keys, the 17-year-arrest old’s by City of London Police was “conducted in tandem with an FBI investigation.” He goes on to say that the police are expected to release more information about the arrest later today and that an FBI statement is also possible.
Uber previously stated this month that it believed the hack on its systems was carried out by an individual or group “affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$,” which has also been connected to attacks on companies as huge as Microsoft(opens in new tab), Samsung, and Cisco. Those suspicions may have been warranted: As per Keys’ source, the suspect in custody is “believed to be connected to an organization known as ‘Lapsus$.'”
There is a history between Lapsus$ and teen hackers. Only this March was a 16-year-old arrested on suspicion of being a “multi-millionaire cyber-criminal” and group leader. It is unclear whether that arrest is related to this one at this moment.
That is all the knowledge that has been made public thus far, pending the release of supplemental statements by UK authorities or the FBI, but it is worth mentioning how closely the details of the arrest echo suspicions and allegations reared in the previous reporting on the Rockstar hack. Although it’s tempting to make inferences, details are rare and expensive, and the arrested teen has yet to be charged with anything. It is also ambiguous whether these hacks were managed to carry by a lone wolf or by a group of hackers.
