A 16-year-old from Oxford has been accused of being one of the leaders of the hacking group Lapsus$.
The teenager is said to have accumulated huge assets of up to £10.6 million through hacking. As a result, he was betrayed by his red-eyed competitors.
Police in the City of London said they had arrested seven teenagers linked to the hacking group, but were not sure if the sixteen-year-old was a member of the hacking group.
In an interview with the BBC, the boy's father was apprehensive and stressed that he had tried to keep him away from the online world.
According to legend, the autistic teenager attending a special education school in London may be behind the recent hacking group Lapsus$, which has frequently attacked big companies and repeatedly succeeded, and the team is believed to be based in South America and is a relatively new team. But after the team's repeated attacks on companies such as Nvidia, Samsung, and Microsoft, it has become famous in the world.
Play online games
Nah's father told the BBC: "I didn't hear about it until recently. He never talked about any hacking, but he was very good at fiddling with computers and spent a lot of time on them. I always thought he was playing a game. “
"We're going to try to stop him from using the computer."
The BBC also spoke to the boy's mother, who was reluctant to comment on the matter.
'Doxxed' is online
After infighting with members, members code-named "White" were exposed on the site by "doxxed".
The latter exposed his life, address and social media pictures.
They released a biography of his hacking career, "A few years later, his net worth accumulated more than 300 bitcoins [close to $14 million]... [He] now belongs to a ransomware organization called 'Lapsus$'. He has been extorting and 'hacking' several organizations. ”
Before Bloomberg was worded for reporting on the hacking group, cybersecurity researchers had tracked White for up to a year and linked him to Lapsus$ and other hacking incidents.
Alison Nixon, chief research officer at cybersecurity investigative firm Unit 221B, said: "His name was on our list last year and we recognized him before the dossy search. ”
"Unit 221B partnered with [cybersecurity firm] Palo Alto after the cast was identified to observe his movements throughout 2021, regularly keeping law enforcement up to date on crimes."
Mrs Nixon said the researchers tracked him through a series of activities linked to the boy's almost uninterrupted stream of online accounts.
"We do this by looking at the account's post history and looking at old posts to provide that person's contact information."
Mrs Nixon said the trail was tracked because "White" made a mistake by failing to cover his tracks.
Crew on Lapsus$
The Lapsus$ cyber ransomware organization rose to prominence in a short period of time due to its high-profile targets and active presence on messaging app Telegram. Its channel has grown to 47,000 subscribers.
The last message was posted on the channel on Wednesday, and the group said: "Some of our members are on holiday until March 30, 2022. We may be quiet for a while. Thank you for understanding us - we will come up with the big picture as soon as possible. ”
Chris Morgan, from cybersecurity firm Digital Shadows, said Lapsus$ has risen in popularity in recent months after "targeting several enterprise technology companies, destroying massive amounts of data and posting them to their dedicated Telegram data leak channel."
"Little is known about the origins of the organization, but, given that Lapsus$'s initial activities were aimed at several organizations in Brazil, some researchers speculate that the organization is headquartered in South America," Chris Morgan said.
Microsoft and security firm Okta were both attacked by the group this week.
Microsoft said in a blog post on Wednesday that Lapsus$ has limited access to its systems.
Okta, a security firm, admits that it was also hacked by the group, affecting hundreds of its customers. Leifeng networkLeifeng networkLeifeng network