Two British teens have been convicted of working within a notorious Lapsus dollar hacking gang.
A UK court has ruled that 18-year-old Arion Kurtaj and an anonymous 17-year-old (whose UK law protects the identities of minors) have been accused of breaching the networks of multiple companies, including Uber, Rockstar Games and Revolt. was found to have violated the law by engaging in
The two are believed to be smaller players in the Lapsus$ business, which operates across borders and has several members based in Brazil.
Lapsus made headlines in 2021 and 2022 with a series of high-profile network breaches, notably internal communications and leaking code from Microsoft and Rock Star’s development title Grand Theft Auto VI.
Lapsus$ was known as an ever-proliferating hacking group, but it appears to be loosely organized, experiencing infighting at levels most professional hacking groups had grown to long ago. I was.
As a result, several members of the Western European group were quickly arrested and prosecuted. The two defendants in question were initially released but were later reportedly reindicted.
Sentences for Mr. Kurtaj and the unnamed minor have not yet been decided.
But all hope is not lost for the two young men. There are many leaders in the information security world who come from less than noble backgrounds. At the very least, if we question the ability of teenage hackers to play a role in the cybersecurity industry, we need to look back at history.
Reformed script kiddie Marcus Hutchins averted a global IT catastrophe by solving the WannaCry malware. George “GeoHot” Hotz, on the other hand, made a name for himself breaking his protection on iPhone and Playstation copies, then pursued a career in AI and spearheaded development for a short time on Twitter.
Even more famous is Peter ‘Madge’ Zatko. His teenage hacking activities with the L0pht group eventually led to congressional testimony and a top DARPA office. The late Kevin Mitnick managed to turn his notorious federal hacking rap into a consulting career in the corporate IT security field before his untimely death.
