What happened
Shares of cloud-based cybersecurity company Okta (OKTA -0.69%) continued to tumble through the end of the week Friday, down 4% as of 1:55 p.m. EDT. There's no new bad news on the extent of the hack of Okta's systems that was first reported on Tuesday.
But there is some news.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Specifically, last night, Reuters reported that London police have arrested seven people suspected of being involved in the hack and of being part of the Lapsus$ hacking group that executed it. What's most surprising about this news is that the hackers are all "between the ages of 16 and 21."
Yes, you heard that right. Okta may have gotten itself hacked by a bunch of teenagers.
The British police aren't releasing any more information on the suspected hackers, and all have been released "pending investigation," says Reuters, which suggests the evidence tying these suspects to the crime may not be quite airtight. In particular, it's not at all clear why kids in Britain might be part of a hacking group that, reportedly, communicates primarily in Portuguese and broken English.
Now what
Those quirks aside, it's not too hard to figure out why investors might still find today's news disconcerting. If the British suspects are the same folks who broke into Okta's computers and stole customer information back in January, the question naturally arises: Just how good (which is to say, bad) is Okta's security if its systems can be so easily outwitted by a bunch of kids?
This just might be one rare instance in which investors would prefer to learn that the police have arrested the wrong people and that Okta's real hackers are rather more proficient master criminals, yet to be identified.
