A 17-year-old hacker responsible for Uber’s data breach was arrested after trolling the company’s employees in their communication channels.

The hacker, suspected to be the leader of the LAPSUS$ group responsible for multiple hacking offences, remains in police custody after investigations on the Uber breach. The police, however, cannot name the suspect for legal reasons.

Uber investigated the system compromise, which involved a breached Uber EXT account that led to internal servers being accessed last 15 September, The New York Times reported.

In the investigation, the transport service company discovered how the hacker accessed a contractor’s password. This caused the contractor’s personal device to be infected with malware and access to it was sold on the dark web. 

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The hacking was perpetrated by a youngster believed to be “TeaPot” aka “teapotuberhacker” who purportedly deceived the Uber worker into giving him access to the company’s login credentials. 

The same hacker was also reportedly responsible for the data breach involving Rockstar, the developer who made the game series Grand Theft Auto.

Uber pinned the attack on the LAPSUS$ extortion gang members, two of which are said to be facing fraud charges for allegedly hacking into Microsoft’s database.

At first, Uber employees thought the hacking was a joke until the hacker himself revealed the data breach through the company’s communication channel on Slack.

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The hacker then proceeded to breach Uber’s internal systems, forcing the company to disable some of their engineering systems while they attempted to assess the damage.

"Hi @here," the hacker prompted. "I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach,” the intruder posted. The hacker went on to criticise Uber for underpaying drivers.

According to an Uber employee, the hacker interacted with them through Slack where they often exchanged banter. The hacker would then send them explicit images.

BleepingComputer, a technology security company, said Uber’s vulnerabilities could still be actively exploited if left unaddressed.