Lapsus$ masterminds behind Microsoft breach revealed to be teenagers
The man behind the curtain is… well, not a man, but a boy, legally speaking.
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What you need to know
What were you doing when you were 16 years old? Because, if a new report is to be believed, that’s the age of one of the teenager masterminds behind Lapsus$, the cybercriminal group that’s stolen from giants such as Microsoft,NVIDIA, and Samsung.
It’s hard to name another group that has caused as much of a public stir as Lapsus$ in 2022, and as exposed by aBBC report, all that ruckus may boil down to a couple of young people, including teenagers.
According to the City of London Police, “seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with an investigation into a hacking group. They have all been released under investigation. Our inquiries remain ongoing.”
Though the police haven’t confirmed if the aforementioned sixteen-year-old boy is among those seven, his name has been publicly outed (though will not be disclosed here since he’s a minor), as has his connection with Lapsus$. Based on areport by Bloomberg, the boy’s been being tracked by cybersecurity experts for almost a year. But his identity only hit the web as a result of business associates outing him.
The boy, who attends a special education school in Oxford, is said to have accrued $14 million from his activities. His dad told the BBC the following: “I always thought he was playing games.” The dad also stated he will try to limit the boy’s access to computers going forward.
Perhaps this is a cautionary tale for parents who think their kids are enjoying thebest Xbox Game Pass games: Your kid may be earning millions whileforcing Microsoft to publicly explain itselfafter90% of Bing’s source code hits the web.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
