According to a BBC report, one of the arrested teenagers, a 16-year-old from Oxford, had been accused of being the leader of Lapsus$.
The City of London Police, who made the arrests, did not confirm if this teen was one of those taken into custody.
Detective Inspector Michael O'Sullivan, from the City of London Police, said:in a statement sent to iTWire: "The City of London Police has been conducting an investigation with its partners into members of a hacking group.
"Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with this investigation and have all been released under investigation. Our inquiries remain ongoing."
|
I am very amused by security vendor industry spinning this as insider access and SIM hijacking to press in anonymous briefings.
— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) March 24, 2022
95% of the incidents are directly related to zero trust and security service vendors.
British security researcher Marcus Hutchins, known for his role in halting the spread of the WannaCry ransomware in 2017, said in a tweet that the identities of the teenagers had known for a while.
"Whilst this information is new to the general public, the identities of the LAPSUS$ hackers have been known for a while," he said.
"It is near impossible to prosecute minors in certain countries, and they know this. They'll continue causing problems until they turn 18 or cross a line.
"It's a recurring problem in cyber security. Teenagers are known for causing problems on purpose, but offline their impact is limited.
"When it comes to the Internet, sufficiently advanced teenagers can, and have, on multiple occasions crippled multinational companies."
One of the better-known attackers who was arrested in 2011 as a teenager is Mustafa Al-Bassam, who used the handle Tflow, and was one of the six core members of LulzSec. Bassam, who is from Iraq, is now a security researcher working towards a doctorate.