We hear about teenage threat actors getting busted … but what happens as a result? Are they sent to prison for many years? Are they never permitted to use a computer again? Remember the hackers movie IE all computer viruses are screen savers? In that story, the young kid (I believe around 9 years old) was busted for causing a large-scale banking issue under the hacker alias Zero Cool resulting in having him banned from computers until he was 18. Is that how it works in the real world?
Two British teens part of the LAPSUS$ cybercrime and extortion gang have been sentenced for their roles in orchestrating a string of high-profile attacks against a number of companies. Here is an example of something like the hackers movie IE these are a 17- and 18-year-old. The results are not impressive at all. The 17-year-old continues to mention he wants to get back to cybercrime as soon as he can. Yet with this understanding, both teens are seeing less than two-years of “punishment” opening the door for them to return to crime in the near future. The details of the trails can be found HERE via a post from hackernews.
Both defendants were initially arrested in January 2022, and then released under investigation. They were re-arrested in March 2022. While Kurtaj was later granted bail, he continued to attack various companies until he was arrested again in September. I bet they will be back at it again within two years.