In the aftermath of last weekend’s Grand Theft Auto 6 leak, the supposed hackers behind the cyber-attack are under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S Department of Justice in collaboration with Uber Technologies Incorporated.
The ride sharing company was hit by a similar cyber security breach this past weekend when an attacker gained access to an Uber contractor’s account by purchasing the compromised password on the dark web.
The attacker then repeatedly tried to login and in the process, triggered the two-factor authentication until the contractor approved one such request.
A ton of footage exposed online
On Sunday September 18th, a mountain of videos showing in-development footage of Grand Theft Auto 6 flooded social media after initially being posted on the GTAForums by a user calling themselves “teapotuberhacker“. Characters, settings, combat and A.I were all featured in 90 videos stolen from Rockstar’s Slack channels.
Rockstar had been keeping GTA 6 under wraps, having only announced the game in February this year but footage shown in those leaks corroborates longtime reports surrounding Rockstar’s next game which is said to feature a male and female protagonist playable duo and would be set in Tommy Vercetti’s famous stomping grounds of Vice City.
Soon after the network intrusion, the game’s developer issued its own statement confirming the validity of the leaks and expressed its extreme disappointment with the situation but stated that this will not disrupt the development of GTA 6 or the ongoing live service of GTA 5 in any capacity.
Who’s behind this escalating mess?
As was first reported by Eurogamer, the hacker who claimed responsibility also said they were behind the cyber-attack suffered by Uber on September 18th. The taxi company has since released a blog post announcing it is actively working with the FBI and the United States’ Justice Department to locate the hacker(s) in question and bring them to justice.
Acknowledging that Rockstar had also suffered a breach, Uber said it believes the hacker is associated with a hacking organization called Lapsu$ which has been increasingly active over the last year or so.
This group typically uses similar techniques to target technology companies, and in 2022 alone has breached Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, Okta and Nvidia among others, seemingly aiming for notoriety (fame) over financial gain.
A huge persisting “Minor” problem
As recently as March 2022, seven people affiliated with Lapsu$, aged 16-21 years old, were ultimately arrested in the U.K following the previously mentioned hacks on Microsoft and Nvidia.
According to BBC News (British Broadcasting Corporation), the hacking group is believed to be based in South America, only growing more prominent as time goes on.
The British news outlet further reported on a 16-year-old boy from Oxford-England known online as “White” or “Breachbase” who was accused of being one of the Lapsu$ group’s ring leaders/masterminds.
White’s real identity was publicly identified by other hackers and was among the seven individuals arrested by City of London Police before all seven were ultimately released under investigation.
White had reportedly accumulated approximately $14Million (Kshs 1.664Billion) from his cybercrime exploits over a couple of years.
The boy’s father in response, told the BBC, “I had never heard about any of this until recently. He’s never talked about any hacking, but he’s very good on computers and spends a lot of time on the computer. I always thought he was playing games. We’re going to try to stop him from going on computers.”
The boy’s mother was also approached but refused to comment.
As if all this dirt is not enough, Bloomberg also reported in March that cyber security researchers have been tracking the 16-year-old teenager for over a year (prior to his whereabouts, real name and hacking history being revealed by rival hackers) having linked him to Lapsu$.
According to Allison Nixon, chief research officer at cyber-security investigation company Unit 221B, “We’ve had his name since the middle of last year and we identified him before the doxing.”
The minor whose real name has not been disclosed for legal reasons attends a special educational school in Oxford.
A slap in the face to hard working developers
Despite the wealth of information on GTA 6’s gameplay, characters, storyline and the mountain of speculation and expectation resulting from the hack, leaks like this do a serious injustice to the developers of any game.
Having their unfinished work exposed and judged long before it’s ready is deeply unfair, even for one of the most anticipated titles in the industry.
What next for GTA 6
Rockstar has promised more information on GTA 6 is coming soon, but there’s no telling as to when the developer will have a full reveal of the game. Just like its eventual launch, GTA 6 will only be shown when its ready.
It should be keenly noted that the footage stolen is from an early build of the game and will not reflect the final product.
NOTE: Rockstar has taken down most of the leaked materials from social media. GTAForums and GTA 6 Subreddit have also scrubbed topics related to the leaks.
With the FBI and other cybersecurity firms now involved, one would imagine Uber and other affected companies are potentially out for blood. This is likely in addition to Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar’s parent company) carrying out its own investigation.
It remains to be seen if the hackers can continue to stay hidden or if this is the last we see of these large-scale incidences.
