According to the City of London Police, British police arrested seven people as a result of a series of hacks by the Lapsus $ hacking group targeting large corporations such as Okta Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Okta Inc, based in San Francisco. The authentication service is being used by some of the world’s largest companies to provide access to the network, and on Tuesday it was attacked by hackers and some customers may have been affected. Stated.
“The City of London Police is investigating members of the hacking group with partners,” detective Michael O’Sullivan said in an email in response to a question about the Lapsus $ hacking group.
A ransom-seeking gang posted a series of screenshots of Okta’s internal communications on the Telegram channel late Monday.
“Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 were arrested in connection with the investigation and all were released during the investigation,” O’Sullivan said.
News of digital infringement has dropped Okta shares by about 11% in the face of criticism that digital certification companies are slow to respond to intrusions.
The City of London Police did not directly name Lapsus $ in the statement. A spokeswoman said none of the seven arrested had been formally charged until the investigation was conducted.
Who is Lapsus $?
Last month, Lapsus $ leaked proprietary information about US chip maker Nvidia Corp. to the Web.
Recently, the group claimed to have leaked source code from several major tech companies, including Microsoft, and confirmed on Tuesday that one of its accounts had been compromised.
Lapsus $ is not responding to repeated requests for comments on Telegram channels and emails.
Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that teenagers living near Oxford, England, were suspected of being behind a more notable attack.
The teenager’s father, who was contacted by phone and couldn’t be named because he was a minor, declined to comment. Reuters confirmed that cybersecurity researchers investigating Lapsus $ believe teenagers are involved in the group, according to three people familiar with the matter.
In a Thursday blog post, Palo Alto Networks research team Unit 42 described Lapsus $ as an “attack group” motivated by notoriety rather than financial gain.
Unlike other groups, they do not rely on the deployment of ransomware (malicious software for encrypting victims’ networks, a feature of digital robbers) and instead manually waste the target’s network. increase.
Along with another security consultancy, Unit 221b, Palo Alto researchers identified the “major actors” behind Lapsus $ in 2021 and “supported law enforcement agencies to prosecute this group. “.
“The teenagers we have identified as controlling Lapsus $ have been particularly helpful,” Allison Nixon, Chief Research Officer at Unit 221b, told Reuters.
“Not only for their leadership role, but also for the important information they must have for other members.”
James Pearson and Rafael Satter
follow