Suspected Member of a Lapsus$ Hacker Group Arrested in Brazil

The Brazilian Federal Police reported that an alleged member of the well-known hacker group Lapsus$ was arrested in the city of Feira de Santana. The arrest was made as part of Operation Dark Cloud, which started back in August 2022. Not much is known about the suspect other than the fact that he may be a teenager.

A law enforcement press release states that Operation Dark Cloud was linked to an investigation into the activities of a criminal organization engaged in “various cyberattacks”, including incidents that occurred at the end of 2021.

The attacks reported by the police were directed against the Ministry of Health and dozens of other federal government agencies, including the Ministry of Economy and the Federal Highway Police. These were the first Lapsus$ attacks that the group used to become famous.

In particular, during the mentioned attack on the Ministry of Health, the attackers deleted files and defaced the department’s website. Then the message of the criminals said that the Lapsus$ hacker group takes responsibility for the attack and theft of data from the ministry’s network.

However, hackers from this group began to get to the front pages of the media later, after compromising such pillars of the IT industry as Microsoft, Nvidia, Ubisoft and so on.

The Brazilian police reports that the investigation revealed such crimes as the creation of a criminal organization, the intrusion of computer devices, the interruption or disruption of telegraph, radiotelegraph or telephone communications and obstruction of its restoration, as well as the corruption of minors and money laundering.

Let me remind you that Lapsus$ participants have been arrested before. So, in March of this year, the British police reported the arrest of seven alleged members of the group, two of whom were later charged.

In addition, last month the same British police arrested a teenager who was associated with Lapsus$ and, apparently, hacked Uber and Rockstar Games. Moreover, because of the attack on Rockstar Games, dozens of videos with GTA VI gameplay and pieces of the company’s source codes leaked to the network.