So far in 2022, one name has dominated the cybersecurity scene… Lapsus (stylized Lapsus$). Attacks against Vodafone, Samsung, Nvidia and others are already attributed to the threat group. Earlier this week, Microsoft confirmed the group was behind an attack against Bing, Bing Maps, and Cortana. It now seems that people connected with the group have been arrested, and they are… kids.
City of London Police has confirmed the arrest of seven teenagers over connections with the Lapsus group. It is believed the leader of the group could be among them and is also a teenager. According to the BBC, the arrests cover people aged 16 to 21.
“The City of London Police has been conducting an investigation with its partners into members of a hacking group,” Detective Inspector Michael O’Sullivan of the City of London Police told The Verge. “Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with this investigation and have all been released under investigation. Our enquiries remain ongoing.”
Reports mid-week put an Oxford teenager as the mastermind behind the group. City of London Police did not confirm if that is true or whether this teenager was included in the arrests.
Identity Crisis
It is worth pointing out the individuals identity was released before the arrests. Reports point to a disgruntled Lapsus customer who doxed the mastermind. In a special report, Krebs on Security said the leader bought the Doxbin sit that allows people to share personal information on other people.
However he is said to have been a poor website operator and sold the site in January, but not before releasing the whole Doxbin dataset online. To retaliate, the community doxed him. BBC News says it spoke with the teens father, who denied any knowledge of the Lapsus group:
“I had never heard about any of this until recently. He’s never talked about any hacking, but he is very good on computers and spends a lot of time on the computer,” the father says. “I always thought he was playing games. We’re going to try to stop him from going on computers.”
Tip of the day: With many reachable wireless access points popping up and disappearing again, the available networks list can become quite annoying. If needed you can use the allowed and blocked filter list of Windows to block certain WiFi networks or all unknown WiFi networks.