Austin Alcala, 19, from the town of McCordsville, Indiana, has plead guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and criminal copyright infringement.


His sentencing date will be July 29th when he could face as much as 5 years in jail.

Alcala was part of a hacking group that attempted successfully to infiltrate game studios between the Spring of 2012 and April 2014. Companies attacked were Microsoft, Valve and Epic games.

The group stole internal documents, source code and unreleased games. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Alcala worked with the other members of the group to infiltrate systems owned by Microsoft in order to steal software and internal documents discussing the then-unreleased Xbox One console and Xbox Live online gaming service.

Also stolen by the group was 11,266 log-in credentials from an unnamed company and distributed to other members of the group.

Other members of the group have already been convicted, including Sanadodeh Nesheiwat of New Jersey, David Pokora of Ontario, Canada and Nathan Leroux of Maryland.

The DOJ said that the FBI is still investigating, looking for other members in Canada and Australia.

Source: TheRegister.uk