GTA 6 hack: UK police arrest 17-year-old reportedly linked to Rockstar security breach

UK police have arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on suspicion of hacking, and it’s being claimed that it’s in relation to the recent GTA 6 hack.

City of London Police said today that the arrest took place on Thursday evening and that the suspect remains in custody.

Citing a source said to be familiar with the matter, journalist Matthew Keys claimed the arrest is related to the recent Rockstar hack and possibly an Uber security breach too.

Keys said the arrest was made in concert with an investigation being conducted by the FBI.

“Police expected to give more details on arrest of 17-year-old Rockstar Games hacker later today, possible statement coming from the FBI later this morning/afternoon,” he tweeted.

Earlier this week, transport tech giant Uber said it was in contact with the FBI and US Department of Justice regarding the culprit of a recent security breach, which is potentially the same hacker behind Rockstar’s GTA 6 leak.

In what will likely go down as one of the games industry’s most high-profile data leaks ever, more than an hour of Grand Theft Auto 6 development footage was published on Sunday via an anonymous user posting on the GTA Forums website.

They claimed to have obtained the leaked assets via an internal Slack channel and said they were also behind a recent Uber data breach which had Slack at its centre too.

While it’s not confirmed if the attacker did indeed perform both the GTA and Uber hacks, the latter released a statement on Monday acknowledging the potential link.

Uber said it believes that its attacker (or attackers) are affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$, which has been increasingly active over the last year.

The hacking collective, which may be based in South America, is thought to be responsible for a series of cyber-attacks against major technology companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Samsung and Vodaphone.

On Monday, Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two publicly acknowledged the GTA leak and claimed that it had “taken steps to isolate and contain this incident”.

Further reading

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Rockstar comments on GTA 6 leak and claims project won’t be delayed

The company said it was "extremely disappointed" to have details on the game shared in this way

“We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto,” it said.

“At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects.

“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations.”