A teenager fr om the UK is suspected of being brains behind the Lapsus$ hacker group that took responsibility for a series of cyberattacks against major technology firms, such as Nvidia, Samsung, Microsoft, and Okta.
Citing four cybersecurity researchers investigating the hacks, Bloomberg reported that the attacks were traced to a 16-year-old teen living at his mother's house near Oxford, England. However, the teenager, who goes by the online moniker “White” and “breachbase,” hasn’t been accused of any crime by law enforcement and the researchers haven't been able to conclusively tie him to every hack Lapsus$ has claimed, Bloomberg said.
The alleged teen hacker may also have been involved in the attack against video game maker Electronic Arts (EA) last July, security expert Brian Krebs said in a report detailing the Lapsus$ operations, including the activity of a core group member known as “Oklaqq” and “WhiteDoxbin.”
“Back in May 2021, WhiteDoxbin’s Telegram ID was used to create an account on a Telegram-based service for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, wh ere they introduced themself as “@breachbase.” News of EA’s hack last year was first posted to the cybercriminal underground by the user “Breachbase” on the English-language hacker community RaidForums, which was recently seized by the FBI,” according to Krebs.
Another member of Lapsus$ is suspected to be a teenager residing in Brazil. The researchers have identified seven unique accounts associated with the hacking group, indicating that there are likely others involved in the group's operations. The teen’s high level of hacking skills initially led researchers to believe that the activity they were observing was automated, Bloomberg said.
On March 23, the group posted a message in their Telegram channel saying that they intend to take some time off from hacking.
“A few of our members has a vacation until 30/3/2022. We might be quiet for some times,” the hackers wrote. “Thanks for understand us. We will try to leak stuff ASAP.”