Rockstar games An arrest Thursday night of a 17-year-old in the United Kingdom may have led to the capture of one of the biggest video game-related burglaries in recent history. London’s police force confirmed the arrest of an Oxford suspect on a social media channel regularly used for police arrest updates and specified the suspect’s age, a vague charge of “suspected piracy” and that the investigation was being coordinated with the UK’s National Crime Vassiliou Organization (NCA) and specifically its National Cyber Crime Unit. This accusation was followed hours later by a report by American freelance journalist Matthew Keys claiming that the arrest revolved around the recent theft and distribution of unreleased assets from British video game studio Rockstar North. That report cites “sources” to claim that the FBI was involved in this investigation and that the data seized also included parts of a massive Uber-related breach. Keys’ report, as of press time, has not been confirmed by major news outlets in either the US or the UK.
Mistaken suspicions
The gaming leak in question was one of the highest profile in recent history, as it essentially contained the world premiere of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI video game. Until this week’s leak, fans of the show were left with rumors and hearsay about its possible setting (a Miami-like city that resembles the show’s Vice City) and its leads (a pair of “Bonnie and Clyde” leads “, including the first playable woman in a main GTA game). Both of these rumors were confirmed by the leak, which Rockstar eventually confirmed was legit and came from a 3-year-old version of the game.
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Prior to Thursday’s arrest, the GTA VI game user first claimed involvement in a recent massive Uber data breach — and Uber publicly blamed hacking collective Lapsus$ for the breach. Previously, at least one teenage boy from Oxford had been linked to Lapsus$ hacking attempts by a BBC report. UK authorities did not confirm the accuracy of the report at the time, due to privacy rules for juvenile suspects. So while the GTA VI leak could be linked to Lapsus$’s efforts, that connection remains unconfirmed as of press time.
Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin previously reported on Lapsus$’s hacking attempts as they were recorded by members on their official Telegram chat channels. Many of the team’s methods, at least as publicly disclosed, exploited vulnerabilities in standard “two-factor” multi-factor authentication systems – which typically revolve around less secure backup login options that an attacker can exploit. The GTA VI hacker previously suggested that they gained unauthorized access to Rockstar’s source code by accessing the company’s Slack chat interface, but as of press time, it’s unclear if this was also a matter of “MFA bombing” to trick a employee to unwittingly accept something. like a phone call prompt.
If this week’s arrest in Oxford is connected to the GTA VI leak, that timeline would be much more accelerated than we’ve seen in another notable European source code leak. German hacker Axel Gembe has finally told the story of his arrest after he breached Valve’s computer systems to download the source code to Half-Life 2. That raid and subsequent arrest took place about eight months after the leak was first reported.
