Video Games

GTA 6 hacker to be detained indefinitely after MacGyver-esque Rockstar attack

Member of cyber-crime gang will be kept in mental hospital

Marco Wutz

GTA 6 hacker to be detained indefinitely after MacGyver-esque Rockstar attack
GTA 6 hacker to be detained indefinitely after MacGyver-esque Rockstar attack /

A hacker belonging to the cyber-crime gang Lapsus$ has been handed an indefinite hospital order by a British court. The 18-year old from Oxford, United Kingdom, was responsible for a breach at Nvidia and BT/EE, after which he was detained by police. Despite having his laptop confiscated, he managed to hack GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games by using a hotel TV, his mobile phone, and an Amazon Firestick – the guy is basically a psychopathic MacGyver.

The BBC reported that the judge deems the criminal as too much of a danger to the public to be let go as he’s feeling no remorse and has a high desire to keep committing crimes. He was also violent during his detainment after the infamous GTA 6 hack, which saw him breach the studio’s Slack from where he stole 90 clips of the upcoming game as the source code. Examples of both were posted on the internet at the time as part of his ultimatum to Rockstar to contact him.

Trailer scene from GTA 6 showing a highway at sunset.
A scene from the recent GTA 6 trailer :: Rockstar / Take-Two

He’ll be kept in a secure mental hospital until a reassessment shows a change in his attitude.

One accomplice, who is a year younger than the GTA 6 hacker, got a milder sentence that includes intense supervision and a ban of using VPNs. He, too, sounds like an unsavory type, being described as showing an “unpleasant and frightening pattern of stalking and harassment” of women.

Authorities have not managed to access the two hackers’ cryptocurrency wallets, so it’s unclear how much they were able to steal over the duration of their activities.

While the two British citizens have been caught and sentenced, other members of the group are still thought to be at large. It frequently used both English and Portuguese in its communications with the public, such as after successfully pulling off one of its coups, which makes authorities think that part of the gang is operating from Brazil.

Rockstar Games informed the court during proceedings that it estimated the damage from the hack to have amounted to $5 million USD and “thousands of hours” of staff time. It released the first official GTA 6 trailer earlier this month.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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