The FBI Investigates 'The Grand Theft Auto 6' With Blames On A Prolific Hacker Group

23/09/2022

Grand Theft Auto is the popular action-adventure game series from Rockstar Games.

As one of the games that popularized the open world system, where players can complete missions in whatever order they want to progress the overall story, the series has been a major success, both critically and financially.

According to reports, Rockstar Games has shipped more than 370 million copies, meaning that the series is among the highest selling video game franchise of all time, comparable to the likes of Nintendo's Mario and Pokémon, as well as Activision's Call of Duty, and Tetris.

And this time, a massive leak managed to unveil many of Grand Theft Auto 6, before its official release date.

It is said that the hacker behind the leak, is the same as the ones who hacked Uber.

According to Uber in a an updated blog post:

"There are also reports over the weekend that this same actor breached video game maker Rockstar Games. We are in close coordination with the FBI and US Department of Justice on this matter and will continue to support their efforts."

Uber said it believed the person responsible to be "affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$, which has been increasingly active over the last year or so" and which has similarly breached a list of other technology companies this year such as Microsoft, Samsung and Nvidia.

Rockstar Games itself, has issued its own statement concerning the hack, admitting that it has indeed suffered a "network intrusion" which had led to someone breaching its system and stole information about Grand Theft Auto 6.

The leak consists of about an hour-and-a-half of in-development footage. And soon after the news, the footage is being posted to YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and many gaming forums online.

While GTA 6 project was already under development for about a couple of years, the leaked clips show how the game is during early and unfinished development builds, showing how the team at Rockstar Games tested some aspects of the game.

The material was a work-in-progress in its rawest form.

Besides stealing the footage, the hacker also stole information from the company’s internal Slack message system.

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier said he verified the leak is real through sources at Rockstar Games.

And not just that, because the hackers also claim that they have the game’s source code as well.

In cases like this, if the source code is leaked, fans can easily recreate the game, before the official game is released.

One good example is Half Life 2.

When the game's source code was stolen on October 2003, fans were able to compile a playable version of the game, one year before its official launch in November 2004.

Besides the morale damage the Valve team experienced, Valve also experienced a damage that went up around $250 million.

Data leak like this isn't anything new.

In fact, in the world where remote working has become common, COVID-19 pandemic has only increased the risks, simply because people have become even more accustomed in working at home.

Because more and more data is being sent through the internet, and more and more data is stored inside the cloud, the chances of leaks can increase.

GTA 6 leak
Screenshot of the GTA 6 leak, showing how the game look while still under development.
GTA 6 leak
Screenshot of the GTA 6 leak, showing a female character as the protagonist.

The developer of the GTA game said that it is "extremely disappointed."

But regardless, the leak shall have no "long-term effect" to the game's development.

Rockstar Games also said that the leak doesn't affect its online services, and that Grand Theft Auto Online was also not affected.

Previously, in March 2022, a 16-year-old from Oxford known online as "White" who was accused of being one of the Lapsus$ group's leaders.

The boy's real identity was publicly identified by other hackers, and was one of the few people arrested by City of London Police, before they were all released under investigation.

Read: Teen Arrested, With The Accusation Of Being The Mastermind Behind Lapsus$ Hacking Group