Two teenagers from the UK, accused of being associated with the Lapsus$ gang, were released on bail after appearing at Highbury Corner Magistrates on Friday morning.
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According to a statement from Inspector Michael O'Sullivan, of the City of London Police, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old were charged following an international investigation.
"Both teenagers have been charged with three counts, one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to harm the integrity of data, one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to obstruct access to data," O'Sullivan said.
«The 16‑year‑old was also charged with making a computer execute a function to obtain unauthorized access to a program».
Although the British police detective did not name the gang the two teenagers are associated with, a BBC report linked them to the Lapsus$ group today and said they were released on bail, "subject to certain conditions."
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However, the arrests have not yet curbed the activities of the cartel, which returned from “holidays” this week to leak 70GB of data belonging to software services giant Globant on March 30. The Luxembourg-based company said it is currently “conducting an exhaustive investigation” and that it is “taking strict measures to prevent further incidents.”
The Lapsus$ group has been on the radar of international law enforcement for some time now, with seven people aged between 16 and 21 believed to be associated with the gang. These individuals were arrested by the City of London Police last week.
The Lapsus$ gang has been in the news recently for attacking high-profile tech companies worldwide, including Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, Okta and Ubisoft, with many of them resulting in massive data leaks.
Despite the huge names they added to their list of victims, most of the members of Lapsus$ are believed to be teenagers, whose main goal is to become known in the hacking and not so much financial gain.
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The FBI is also examining the group's illegal activities and seeking information about Lapsus$ members involved in compromising computer networks belonging to many companies based in the USA.
Although it is not yet clear how many active members the gang has and what role each of them plays, it is believed that they have subsidiaries worldwide based on the Telegram conversations that appear to be in many languages, such as English, Russian, Turkish, German and Portuguese.
