FBI on the trail of the “GTA 6” leaker – Taxi company helps with hacker hunt

After the GTA 6 mega leak, the FBI is now on the trail of the hacker. In the hunt, she gets support from the taxi company Uber.

New York – On September 18th, probably the biggest leak in gaming history was published. Unknown people have uploaded almost an hour of material from the next Grand Theft Auto to various forums. They illegally downloaded the material from developer Rockstar Games after the internal messenger service Slack was allegedly hacked. Now the FBI is already on the trail of the hacker and is receiving support from the taxi service Uber.

GTA 6 Leak: On the trail of the hackers – FBI and Justice Department investigate cyber attack

On the hunt for the hackers: The GTA 6 Mega Leak is real, confirmed industry insider and Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier on September 18th. Rockstar Games’ official statement on the hacker attack followed shortly thereafter. According to the New York-based company, GTA 6 shouldn’t have to suffer any postponements, but the developers are very disappointed that fans got to see the game in this way.

The hacker or the hacker collective has already spoken out. According to various reports, the hackers are demanding high sums for the GTA source code from Take-Two and Rockstar Games. Apparently the leaker(s) feel very secure in their work and would like to further exploit it. But as VGC reports, the incident is already being thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the US Department of Justice.

GTA 6 Leak: FBI is looking for the hackers – Uber supports the hunt

The FBI has these clues: As the hacker himself admitted, he probably got the “GTA 6” data via a hacking attack on the Slack messenger service. The New York developer used this so that employees could stay in touch and quickly send data back and forth. This data included the almost 90 clips that were leaked for GTA 6 on September 18th. Since the corona pandemic, there have been countless cyber attacks on large companies. Not for the first time, hackers have been able to use Slack to access confidential information and data.

This group typically uses similar techniques to attack tech companies and in 2022 alone has attacked Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Nvidia, and Okta, among others. There were also reports over the weekend that the same player has infiltrated video game maker Rockstar Games. We are in close coordination with the FBI and the US Department of Justice on this matter and will continue to support their efforts.

Uber also affected: The US taxi company Uber suffered a cyber attack via the messenger service Slack. In a press release the company has now announced that the same hacker group is probably behind the attack on Rockstar Games and on its own company: Lapsus$. The group is also suspected to be behind other cyber attacks such as on Nvidia, Microsoft and Ubisoft.

According to Uber, it is in close contact with the FBI and the US Department of Justice to investigate the group’s attacks and find the culprits. Since the incident, Take-Two has also taken legal action against the leak. So several videos with the leaked material were taken from YouTube and the GTA Forums also had to delete the clips and posts.

Rubric Listing Image: © Rockstar Games