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For bad actors, the more intelligence they have on their target, the better. Attackers typically gather intelligence by scraping data readily available from public sources, called open source intelligence (OSINT).

On September 19, 2022, an 18-year-old cyberattacker known as “teapotuberhacker” (aka TeaPot) allegedly breached the Slack messages of game developer Rockstar Games. Using this access, they pilfered over 90 videos of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI game. They then posted those videos on the fan website GTAForums.com. Gamers got an unsanctioned sneak peek of game footage, characters, plot points and other critical details. It was a game developer’s worst nightmare.

In addition, the malicious actor claimed responsibility for a similar security breach affecting ride-sharing company Uber just a week prior. According to reports, they infiltrated the company’s Slack by tricking an employee into granting them access. Then, they spammed the employees with multi-factor authentication (MFA) push notifications until they gained access to internal systems, where they could browse the source code.