A hacker who set the gaming world alight with the leak of the decade this week, claims he is the same 18 year old who was responsible for the embarrassing breach of Uber’s internal systems just days prior.
On September 16, Uber announced via Tweet that it was investigating a “cybersecurity incident”.
This was around the same time as a screenshot emerged of the company’s internal messaging platform, where the hacker had taken control of staff accounts and posted an announcement of the data breach.
According to employees who spoke to “The Post”, staff initially thought it was a joke and were interacting with the hacker (including replying with GIFs and Twitch emotes) before the Slack platform was taken down by Uber’s IT team.
The hacker told the “New York Times” they had gained access by texting an Uber employee, pretending to be from their IT department, and getting them to provide their password.
From there, he managed to gain access to a variety of the company’s systems, including their messaging platforms and cloud services accounts with Google and Amazon.
He also stated to the “NYT: that he was just 18 years old, and to The Post that they had done it simply for fun.
Then on 18 September a post was made to GTAforums with a link to 90 video clips, reportedly from Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6 – the as yet unannounced follow up to the incredibly successful game Grand Theft Auto V.
Despite initial scepticism, the leak was confirmed first to Bloomberg by internal sources and then officially by GTA developers Rockstar Games.
In the statement, Rockstar describes the video as “early development footage”.
In their initial forum post, the hacker also claims to have obtained the source code and assets for GTA V as well as for a GTA 6 test build.
He has since claimed to be in negotiation with Rockstar and that while the GTA 6 test build is not for sale, the GTA V source code is – but not for less than $10 000.
In following posts to the forum, the hacker claimed to be the same individual that had breached Uber just days prior.
That statement is unverified, but the hacker also claims to have gotten access by deceiving a Rockstar staff member and gaining access to their Slack account – which is the same process as in the Uber breach.
IOL Tech