Life Sentence: 18, Arion Kurtaj Hacker leaked GTA 6 footage.
A couple of weeks ago, the Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) trailer release made waves across news feeds, and its staggering 160 million views in the first three weeks underscored the massive anticipation for the game. The estimated billion-dollar project faced a potential catastrophe before taking off, all thanks to Arion Kurtaj, a hacker with autism from Oxford.
Currently confined to a secure mental hospital, Kurtaj played a pivotal role in criminal activities surrounding the GTA 6 video game. The Lapsus$ hacker group, of which Kurtaj is a part, executed a series of hacks, with the intrusion into Rockstar Games servers being particularly notable.
Despite being already in custody for the group’s other cybercrimes, such as crypto wallet schemes and infiltrating major companies, including financial losses of up to $10 million, Kurtaj orchestrated the Rockstar hack.
The sheer audacity of the Rockstar hack lies in the circumstances surrounding it. While in custody, Kurtaj, confined to a secure hotel room, ingeniously utilized an Amazon Firestick connected to the hotel television and a cell phone to rip off 90 clips of alpha build footage from GTA 6. He also infiltrated the internal Slack channel, gaining access to employee conversations. Kurtaj outlined a set of demands with the threat of releasing the GTA 6 source code if they weren’t met
Upon apprehension, Kurtaj displayed no inclination to abandon his cybercriminal activities. However, his severe autism rendered him unfit to stand trial.
Consequently, he now resides in a secure hospital, facing a lifetime sentence or release contingent upon medical professionals deeming him no longer a threat. The intriguing saga not only highlights the vulnerability of even high-profile projects to cyber threats but also raises questions about the intersection of mental health and cybercrime in the legal system.
