The LAPSUS$ hacker group recently managed to infiltrate the servers of Nvidia, Samsung, Okta and Microsoft. Security researchers were therefore surprised to discover that the group actually appeared to be led by a 16-year-old.
LAPSUS$ is a criminal organization whose hallmark is to prey on large groups, penetrate their servers, and then brag about their exploits. To the researchers, the gang initially looked like attackers using ransomware, but that is ultimately not the case. Instead of that, LAPSUS$ specializes in extortion. The organization robs the victims, then threatens to destroy stolen data if a ransom is not paid.
At the beginning of March 2022, hackers attacked Nvidia and had required that all graphics cards be able to mine cryptocurrencies under penalty of disclosing confidential documents. The group then targeted Samsung a few days later and threatened the Korean giant with releasing 190 GB of sensitive data. Finally, recently, it was Microsoft’s servers that had been the target of hackers.
The pirate group would be led by a teenager
While one could imagine that LAPSUS$ is a group of hackers with a lot of experience since it is able to steal data from large digital groups, it seems that it is ultimately just teenagers. City of London Police say they have arrested seven teenagers because of their alleged links to the various cases.
At their head, we would find a 16-year-old boy living with his mother about 8 kilometers from the University of Oxford, England. Questioned by our colleagues from Bloomberg from the home intercom, the mother announced that she was not aware of her son’s illegal activities and did not wish to comment on the case. However, she said her son ” never talked about hacking, but he is very good at computers and spends a lot of time on the computer. I always thought he was playing games “.
Another LAPSUS$ member is believed to be a teenager based in Brazil, and researchers have identified other unique accounts associated with the hacker group, suggesting that there are other members at large. The announcement of the discovery of the perpetrators of the hack is good news for large American groups, who originally thought they were victims of Russian pirates because of the current geopolitical tensions relating to the war in Ukraine.
Source: BBC
