Rockstar Games has been struggling with leaks for its latest Grand Theft Auto title, especially since it's one of the most anticipated games of the decade. One of the hackers who was caught finally got his sentence, and the court decided that he would be spending his life in a hospital prison.
Young Hacker Gets a Life Sentence
Arion Kurtaj, the 18-year-old hacker, has become famous because of his bold approach to the cyberattack, as well as leaking footage the Rockstar Games has been working hard to conceal. It has been a year since the hacker was caught in his hotel room in the act.
As a consequence of his breach of the video game studio, as well as his association with the hacker group Lapsus$, the leaker will potentially be incarcerated for the rest of his life. His sentence could have been a lot worse.
As it turns out, Kurtaj had acute autism, which led to health professionals deciding that he was unfit to stand trial. With this arrangement, he can only be released once the doctors decide that he is not a danger to others anymore, as reported by Kotaku.
In his mental health assessment, it was deemed that the hacker "continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible," with the health professionals even saying that he was "highly motivated" to do so.
Kurtaj's Crimes
Although cybercrime is not condoned, Kurtaj's track record is admittedly impressive for an 18-year-old, especially since he did this when he was younger. You can even tell by how he had brazenly approached Rockstar Games with his demands.
In fact, Kurtaj managed to infiltrate Rockstar Games using just an Amazon Firestick, a keyboard, a mouse, and a smartphone in a hotel room. The hacker was on bail as he conducted the cyberattack, and the police caught him red-handed, as per Game Rant.
The 18-year-old hacker announced through Rockstar Games' Slack channel that he was a hacker, and that he would leak all the GTA VI data he managed to steal unless the video game developer contacted him through Telegram.
Kurtaj had already been associated with many other attacks. As mentioned before, he was on bail as he hacked through the GTA developer, and that's because prior to the incident, he had already breached Nvidia as well as Uber.
One of the major things that contributed to his sentencing was his association with the digital terrorist group known as Lapsus$, who was behind many other cyberattacks against tech giants such as Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Samsung.
Maybe Rockstar Games Just Needs Better Cybersecurity
It's either Kurtaj is simply a brilliant hacker, or Rockstar Games needs to amp up their cybersecurity, especially since there have been several leaks online, and most of them were not from the data stolen by the 18-year-old hacker.
The company was even forced to release the trailer for GTA 6 early due to it being leaked. There was also footage found on TikTok which was reportedly acquired from a Rockstar Games developer's kid.
