t 9 p.m. on Sept. 22 last year, a group of City of London police officers waited outside room M15 at the Travelodge Bicester, a one-star budget hotel in Oxfordshire, England, for the right moment to bust in. On the other side of the door was someone they believed to be behind two serious data hacks: one on Uber Technologies Inc. and the other an unprecedented leak of code for Rockstar Games Inc.
“Despite the outcome of the jury’s decision, which may be subject to an appeal, we hope this case will shine a light on the way that vulnerable individuals with severe neurodevelopmental disorders interface with the police and criminal justice system,’’ Niamh Matthews-Murphy, Kurtaj’s lawyer, said in a statement to Bloomberg.
said that while Lapsus$ was like any other cyber-criminal group, it “was unique for its effectiveness, speed, creativity, and boldness.”With relative ease and from the hotel room in Oxfordshire, Kurtaj — together with other unknown members of Lapsus$ — stole commercially sensitive code and video footage of the latest installment of the in-development Grand Theft Auto series. According to the prosecution, they got into Rockstar’s systems on Sept.
“It’s one of the biggest entertainment properties of all time and something like this would spoil our marketing,” said Daniel Emerson, the chief legal officer of Take 2 Interactive Software Inc., a subsidiary of Rockstar, giving evidence in court. Emerson estimated that the company spent over $1.5 million on legal and communications firms in addition to over $2 million on third party vendors and hundreds of wasted hours for senior employees.
When the police raided Kurtaj’s hotel room, they found an IPhone 13 Pro Max slightly under the bed covers, an investigator said at the trial. This phone was later connected to some of the hacks in which he was implicated. The police haven’t managed to access the device since Kurtaj refuses to share the PIN. The first batch of offenses Kurtaj and the unnamed teen were accused of taking part in was a SIM-swapping spree against users of BT’s EE phone service in 2021.
“A juvenile desire to stick two fingers up to those that they are attacking,” prosecution lawyer Kevin Barry said. For the defense, they were the efforts of silly teenagers out to get a laugh.