18-Year-Old Hacker Who Attacked Nvidia, Grand Theft Auto, Uber Has Complex Autism Spectrum Disorder Linked to Mental Health
Kurtaj, 18, is at the center of a seven-week criminal trial in London along with a 17-year-old male accomplice, who cannot be named because he is a minor, for hacking Nvidia, Grand Theft Auto, and Uber in 2022. The two face 12 charges including extortion, fraud, and cyberattacks, according to Bloomberg.
Kurtaj, who was fully responsible for half of the charges, was found unfit to stand trial by a judge before the trial began because he suffers from complex autism spectrum disorder, a pervasive developmental disorder with psychiatric implications.
That means he cannot be found to have had “criminal intent” and could be placed on a community treatment order or sent to a mental health facility instead of prison. Earlier this week, a jury found him guilty on all charges.
Lawyers argued that the evidence linking the two to the incident was not strong enough and there was no way to know Kurtaj was responsible for the cyberattack.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Kurtaj's lawyer Niamh Matthews-Murphy said that despite the jury's decision, which could be appealed, they hope the case will shed light on how vulnerable individuals with severe neurodevelopmental disorders can interact with the police and justice system.
In the years leading up to the incident, Kurtaj lived at home in Oxfordshire with his mother and younger brother. During the trial, Kurtaj's childhood doctor, Nicholas Hindley, described him as "a particularly impaired individual". The doctor's first contact with Kurtaj came after the special needs school he attended was unable to control him.
Despite having no formal education since the age of 14, he was found to have committed a number of security breaches, hacking into and exposing weaknesses in the cybersecurity systems of some of the world’s largest companies, which had spent millions of dollars to make their systems impenetrable, according to attorney Matthews-Murphy.
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