An autistic teenager who hacked onto Grand Theft Auto, Uber and EE before demanding a £3million ransom has lost an appeal against his sentence.
Arion Kurtaj, now 20, was handed an indefinite hospital order for his involvement with a cyber-crime group, who blackmailed telecoms firm EE as well as stealing code and video footage from developer Rockstar's unreleased video game GTA VI.
The Lapsus$ cyber gang's attacks caused £7m worth of damage to Rockstar and Kurtaj was charged with 12 offences including blackmail, fraud, impairing the operation of a computer and refusing to disclose a key.
Along with a 17-year-old, he also hacked computer chip maker NVIDIA, Uber and the online bank Revolut, between July 2021 and February 2022.
Kurtaj stole 90 clips of the highly anticipated GTA VI and broke into Rockstar's internal messaging system to declare 'if Rockstar does not contact me on Telegram within 24 hours I will start releasing the source code'.
