The notorious hacker behind the GTA 6 trailer leak has also targeted celebrities, including DJ Steve Aoki.
In an explosive revelation, the veil has been lifted on the cybercriminal responsible for the monumental leak of the much-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer last year. It seems that dedicated fans investigating the incident have turned up a plausible culprit and scenario — but will Rockstar get involved?
On that fateful evening of December 4, 2023, the gaming community was rocked by the premature arrival of the GTA 6 trailer, a day before its scheduled unveiling. As millions of fans around the globe scrambled to catch a glimpse of the leaked footage, a cyber sleuth known as ZachXBT was hot on the trail of the culprit.
According to ZachXBT's meticulous investigation, the mastermind behind this audacious leak is a notorious "threat actor" operating under the moniker "Skenkir." This elusive figure, it seems, had pulled off a daring cyber-heist, buying access to a YouTube admin panel, the backend console that grants employees complete control over every video on the platform, including those marked as private.
The timeline of events reads like a Hollywood heist flick. At 8:50 PM UTC, Skenkir bragged to an unknown contact about possessing the holy grail: the GTA 6 trailer. Their nefarious plan was to leak the footage with a "BUY $BTC" watermark.
https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/1798706617841533049
Just minutes later, at 8:58 PM, Skenkir teased their accomplice with a "sneak peek" — the game's logo and release year. Then, precisely one hour after that, the trailer detonated on X (formerly Twitter), racking up millions of views before the copyright strike team at Take-Two Interactive swooped in to save the day.
While fans rushed to be among the first to lay eyes on the leaked trailer, a criminal investigation into the leak was already underway. There were reports indicating that it triggered an internal investigation by Google into potential leakers within the ranks of YouTube itself, but it might have been just a coincidence (we think not!).
The ZachXBT findings reveal that Skenkir has been a persistent online menace, implicated in over 40 high-profile "SIM swapping" attacks over the past year alone. Targets included celebrities like DJ Steve Aoki, whose phone numbers were hijacked to bypass two-factor authentication security in order to compromise financial assets and personal data.
Thankfully, Rockstar adapted to the leak quickly, posting the official trailer on YouTube several hours later. In the end, the leak generated an overwhelming global buzz, ensuring the entire gaming world will be watching when Rockstar rolls out the second official GTA 6 trailer.
For the tight-lipped developers sweating such a leak happening to them, perhaps that kind of mainstream exposure is a classic case of "there's no such thing as bad publicity." Even so, these incidents can throw a wrench meticulously planned timelines — who knows how things would have played out without the leak?
