London, Apr 2 (IANS): The City of London Police have charged two teenagers with multiple cyber offences, just a week after they arrested seven individuals as part of its investigation into Lapsus$ hacking group that hit top tech firms like Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung and Vodafone.

In a statement late on Friday, Detective Inspector Michael O'Sullivan from the City of London Police said that they had been conducting an investigation.

Two teenagers, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, have been charged in connection with this investigation and remain in police custody," he said.

Both teenagers have been charged with: three counts of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of data; one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data.

"The 16-year-old has also been charged with one count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorised access to a programme," said the police.

Reports tracked down the 16-year-old, who uses the online moniker "White" or "Breachbase", after his personal information was published online by rival hackers.

Lapsus$ had told its followers on Telegram that some of its members were taking "a vacation".

First surfaced in December 2021, the Lapsus$ hacking group just broke into Luxembourg-based software development consultancy Globant.

The group claimed it has stolen 70GB of files, mentioning a range of global businesses, from Globant, which boasts some of the world's largest companies as clients.

Also on their list were tech giants Facebook and Apple, with the latter referred to in a folder titled 'apple-health-app'.