GTA 6 hacker who intended ‘to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible’ sentenced to an indefinite hospital order

The hacker behind the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks which appeared online in September 2022 has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

As the BBC reports, Arion Kurtaj, 18, from Oxford, was involved with the hacking group Lapsus$, which previously attacked Nvidia and Uber. Although Kurtaj was deemed unfit to stand trial, a mental health assessment reportedly concluded that he “continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible.”

A judge stated that Kurtaj is a high risk to the public due to his intent to commit more cyber-crimes, as well as his skills that could enable him to do so. Furthermore, the court was told that he had been violent while in custody, and that there had been dozens of reports of property damage and injury. He will stay in a secure hospital indefinitely, unless he’s later considered to be harmless by doctors. 

Kurtaj carried out the hack on Rockstar Games while under police protection in a hotel, while on bail for separate cyber-crimes, the jury was told. He reportedly used his mobile phone, hotel TV and an Amazon Fire Stick to carry out the crime, which Rockstar Games told the court cost the company $5 million, as well as thousands of hours to recover from. 

At the time of the hack, Rockstar Games had not yet released any footage of GTA 6, nor had the game’s title been revealed. It was simply known that “active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway.” 

Shortly after the hack took place, Rockstar Games released a public statement in which it announced that it had “suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third-party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems.” It added: “We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way.”

GTA 6 has now been officially unveiled, and is one of the most highly anticipated upcoming games on the horizon.