The BBC reported that the prosecution’s lead barrister on the case, Kevin Barry, said the hackers were motivated by “notoriety,” “financial gain,” and “amusement.”

Kurtaj and a second 17-year-old hacker were found guilty in August. Kurtaj’s hack of Rockstar was the last one he managed before he was caught again in a Travelodge hotel that he had been put up in following concerns for his safety (he was previously doxxed by “rival hackers,” according to the BBC). Kurtaj had been previously arrested for other hacking incidents performed in association with notorious group Lapsus$, and he was out on bail when he went after Rockstar, Uber, and Revolut. A United Kingdom court found that a U.K.-based 18-year-old, Arion Kurtaj, was largely responsible for the hack. The hacker claimed to have accessed Rockstar’s internal Slack, which is an application workplaces use to communicate and share files. The leaked footage depicted a GTA 6 that was clearly in development, with debug tools, blocked-out environments, and all. The leak was, and still is, unprecedented because of its sheer scope, the level of anticipation for the game in question, and because of how rare it is for fans to see huge parts of a AAA video game in a visibly unfinished state. 18, 2022, a hacker published more than 90 videos - roughly an hour’s worth of footage - from the in-development game. Later that year, GTA 6 made history as Rockstar’s developers were subject to one of the largest leaks in modern video game history. Rockstar has been quiet about GTA 6 for most of the past 10 years the studio didn’t acknowledge the game was in development until February 2022. GTA 5 was released 10 years ago, and people have been salivating ever since at the prospect of the sixth entry in the series. Grand Theft Auto is one of the video game industry’s most successful properties, which makes it a hot target for hackers and potential leaks. In the case of GTA 6, the early launch of the trailer hasn’t diluted the hype When The Last of Us Part 2’s PlayStation 5 remaster was leaked early on the PlayStation Store by data miners looking for new information, hours later, an official trailer popped up on YouTube, with several prominent Naughty Dog developers declaring that “leaks really suck.” (In Naughty Dog’s case, however, timing for The Last of Us Part 2’s remaster wasn’t announced, and it’s possible the YouTube release was its planned time.) It’s unusual for a company like Rockstar to disregard its original, announced schedule and just post the thing, but it’s not the first time it’s happened. About 30 minutes later Rockstar did the corporate equivalent of saying “Fuck it,” uploading the trailer and pointing to it in a terse post on X: “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube.” With just over 24 hours left before Rockstar Games was set to debut its first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, a grainy video started circulating online: The GTA 6 trailer, but marked with a massive bitcoin watermark.

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