Hacker Given Life Sentence After Leaking A Trailer
Arion Kurtaj, an 18-year-old-hacker from Oxford, has been sentenced to an indefinite stay at a secure hospital for life. The sentence will be carried out until doctors deem that he is no longer a danger. Kurtaj is a member of the international hacking gang Lapsus$, who leaked clips of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 along with hacking tech companies such as Uber and Nvidia.
Arion Kurtaj’s hospital sentencing was determined due to his diagnosed autism, as doctors deemed he was unfit to stand trial and that the jury needed to determine if he committed the hacks and not if he had criminal intent when doing so. The judge deemed that Kurtaj’s skills made him a continued high risk for cybercrime, such as the Grand Theft Auto leaks. A mental health assessment that was submitted during his sentencing hearing also said that he “continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible.”
Kurtaj was able to complete the hack while under police protection at a Travelodge hotel, using only an Amazon Firestick, the hotel TV, and a mobile phone.
During the trial, the jury was given the information that Kurtaj hacked Rockstar games and released the Grand Theft Auto 6 clips while on bail for his Nvidia and BT/EE hacks. Kurtaj was able to complete the hack while under police protection at a Travelodge hotel, using only an Amazon Firestick, the hotel TV, and a mobile phone. Kurtaj was able to obtain numerous clips of the game and also hacked into the company’s internal Slack to threaten to release the source code for the game if Rockstar didn’t contact him on Telegram.
Kurtaj would then release the clips for Grand Theft Auto 6 and post the source code online. He was promptly arrested and detained following the hack. Rockstar Games would later release the GTA 6 trailer, which quickly received over 100 million views in days. This caused his defense team to argue that the hack did not cause harm to Rockstar, though the judge determined that the other hacks on individuals and companies with Lapsus$ were the more serious crimes.
He “continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible.”
According to Rockstar Games, the Grand Theft Auto 6 hack cost $5 million, along with thousands of staff hours. Along with Kurtaj, a 17-year-old Lapsus$ member was also found guilty of hacking Nvidia and BT/EE, along with stealing from individuals through their crypto wallets. He was sentenced to 18 months of Youth Rehabilitation Order that includes supervision and a VPN ban.
The 17-year-old was also sentenced for “stalking and harassment” of two women. Kurtaj and the 17-year-old are the first and only members of Lapsus$ who have been convicted. The group came to prominence in 2021 and 2022 through hacks that gained them access to Microsoft, Revolut, and more. It remains to be seen if other members of the organization are caught.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is the follow-up to Rockstar Games’ massively successful 2013 game Grand Theft Auto 5. The game recently released a trailer and is set to come out on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PlayStation 5 in 2025. Stay tuned for more on Grand Theft Auto.
Source: BBC
