The GTA 6 hacker who leaked 90 clips and caused $9.3M of damage last year plans to do it again once he’s set free, despite spending time in custody over the past year.
Arion Kurtaj, 18, is a member of cyber-crime group Lapsus$, who are responsible for hacking Nvidia, Uber, Revolut, and blackmailing BT/EE for $4 million. It’s said that Kurtaj’s hack on Nvidia, Uber, and Rockstar Games caused $9.3 million in damages.
Kurtaj has been in jail since September 2022 and appeared via video-link at a court hearing on Friday. During the hearing, psychiatrist Dr Claudia Camden-Smith revealed that during an assessment, Kurtaj stated his intention to return to hacking upon being released. Which does kind of sound like he’s squandering his potential a little bit, unless a company or government hire him to do it, which you’d think they’d be queuing up for considering what the lad has shown he’s capable of.
Prosecutor Kevin Barry referred to the GTA 6 leaks during the hearing: “This material was highly confidential as the game is a billion-dollar franchise and the latest installment is hotly anticipated. He published some of the stolen footage taken during the hack on online forums and blackmailed Rockstar Games that he would release the precious source code which forms the building blocks of the game unless they contacted him – presumably to discuss ransom payment.”
Currently, Kurtaj is under a 12-week hospital order citing that he is suffering from mental illness. Meanwhile, Rockstar ended 10 years of wait by releasing the trailer for GTA 6, which has racked up 140M views in 6 days:
Who knows, maybe Kurtaj will be out in time and somehow manage to leak the whole game before it officially comes out in 2025.
At this point they may even have a character based on him where the protagonist has to hunt down and assassinate someone who has leaked gameplay of a fictional video game. We’ve already seen a whole load of real-life memes make it into GTA 6, so why not?
