London police arrest, charge teen hacking suspect but won’t confirm GTA 6, Uber links
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeThe City of London police report they’ve arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking and said he remains in custody. In a follow-up tweet the next day, the police confirmed...
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/ Police didn’t identify the suspect, but many personal details mirror information uncovered during arrests this spring targeting members of the Lapsus$ hacking group
Updated Sep 26, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC|
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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The City of London police report they’ve arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking and said he remains in custody. In a follow-up tweet the next day, the police confirmed the teen has been charged with two counts of breach of bail conditions and two counts of computer misuse. A hearing was scheduled for Saturday, but as of Monday morning, no further details have been released.
Police declined to say what incident the arrest was in connection with, but many of the details line up with recent high-profile hacks. This spring, the City of London police arrested and released seven teenagers in connection with an investigation into the Lapsus$ hacking group. Today’s arrest also comes just days after two security breaches believed to be connected to Lapsus$, with the leak of early Grand Theft Auto 6 footage due to a “network intrusion” and a security breach at Uber that caused it to take several internal systems offline for a while.
In March, Bloomberg reported that a person believed to be behind several of the group’s major attacks was a then-16-year-old whose home the police visited near Oxford, England, which is in the county of Oxfordshire.
In a statement after the Uber breach, the company wrote on its blog, “We believe that this attacker (or attackers) are affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$, which has been increasingly active over the last year or so.” The GTA 6 leaker claimed in forum posts to be the same person responsible for the attack on Uber.
City of London police declined to share additional details with The Verge.
Update September 26th, 9:22AM ET: Added information from second City of London Police tweet.
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