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One thing that really surprises me is the average age of these criminals. Where from and how do they get the knowledge to break in these places being so young?

bhouston 2y ago
Discord groups and telegram groups are the main places these days? No different than previous generations hanging out on IRC or before that BBSes. It is how I got my start in coding at a young age.
miki123211 2y ago
You underestimate what kids are capable of. Computers are particularly easy for that age group to learn about, all you really need is internet access to read articles or possibly (pirated) ebooks, and your own computer to experiment on. A lot of kids have both. Other industries aren't like that, some require expensive and uncommon equipment (biology, chemistry, now AI), some are a lot more dangerous (electronics, DIY), some require interactions with other people to practice (law, medicine, foreign languages), and nobody treats kids seriously enough to interact with them in that way, some have legal restrictions (medicine, driving cars) etc. It also helps that, to a clueless parent, a kid learning to code is indistinguishable from a kid using their computer to play games, and plenty of kids do that. Society doesn't let kids get a real programming job, even if they're perfectly capable of doing so, so hacking is often the next best thing. The fact that it's "cool" and that you can do it to impress your peers doesn't help either. Incidentally, this is also why kids are such good drug dealers.
- buran77 2y ago
  It's not just a matter of skill. Kids also have a lot less impulse control, and less to lose (from their perspective anyway). So it's more likely that they'll endeavor to do crazy, dangerous, and illegal things than a far more capable adult in that area would.
zmgsabst 2y ago
Adults launder their crime through kids — the same as any gang. Or to be topical, Lulzsec and Sabu.
nova22033 2y ago
This is a good podcast on the topic https://risky.biz/BTN103/ https://risky.biz/BTN103/ Kids start hacking into gaming accounts...and then one person figures out how to do SIM swapping..and it escalates from there
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> Where from and how do they get the knowledge to break in these places being so young? There's a reason they're doing that and someone like Theo de Raadt is bringing us OpenSSH (and OpenBSD). In computer security defending is much harder than attacking. It's not even comparable seen how gigantic the gap is. (dark side) Hacking is easy (and, yes, I did it when I was late teenager/early twenty-ager). Protecting stuff is the hard part.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Yes, the attacker only has to find one weak point, but the defender must find and fix all weak points.
- jazz9k 2y ago
  People actually good at offensive security (not just script kiddies) are paid much higher salaries than people on the defensive side. Defense isn't actually that difficult. 99% is keeping your software updated and configured correctly with industry standards. Most employees at larger companies are lazy and don't want to take the extra time to make something secure.
- randomcarbloke 2y ago
  For every script kiddie there is a box-ticker of a security professional. The actually talented are few and far between.
qwery 2y ago
What's the average age? The perpetrator described in the article is in his mid-20s.
snowwrestler 2y ago
Potentially unpopular opinion here, but one explanation for how youngsters are able to this stuff is that it’s not actually that hard to do these sorts of attacks. It’s hard to do these attacks and get away with it, but actually many of these kids do not get away with it, at least if they are based in Western nations that actually try to stop it. But investigations move slowly and so there is a time gap where it looks like they did. In other words I think the explanation is as much “young men overestimate their abilities” as it is talent for doing this type of work. Specifically their ability to get away with it.
- liendolucas 2y ago
  I was thinking not only about what you said but maybe it's just kids that have access to exploits/tools/techniques but not a very deep knowledge to put all these things just by themselves... Sort of script kiddies on batteries, but is just a guess/opinion of my own and could be wrong.

bhouston 2y ago

Discord groups and telegram groups are the main places these days? No different than previous generations hanging out on IRC or before that BBSes. It is how I got my start in coding at a young age.

miki123211 2y ago

You underestimate what kids are capable of. Computers are particularly easy for that age group to learn about, all you really need is internet access to read articles or possibly (pirated) ebooks, and your own computer to experiment on. A lot of kids have both. Other industries aren't like that, some require expensive and uncommon equipment (biology, chemistry, now AI), some are a lot more dangerous (electronics, DIY), some require interactions with other people to practice (law, medicine, foreign languages), and nobody treats kids seriously enough to interact with them in that way, some have legal restrictions (medicine, driving cars) etc. It also helps that, to a clueless parent, a kid learning to code is indistinguishable from a kid using their computer to play games, and plenty of kids do that. Society doesn't let kids get a real programming job, even if they're perfectly capable of doing so, so hacking is often the next best thing. The fact that it's "cool" and that you can do it to impress your peers doesn't help either. Incidentally, this is also why kids are such good drug dealers.

buran77 2y ago
It's not just a matter of skill. Kids also have a lot less impulse control, and less to lose (from their perspective anyway). So it's more likely that they'll endeavor to do crazy, dangerous, and illegal things than a far more capable adult in that area would.

zmgsabst 2y ago

Adults launder their crime through kids — the same as any gang. Or to be topical, Lulzsec and Sabu.

nova22033 2y ago

This is a good podcast on the topic https://risky.biz/BTN103/ https://risky.biz/BTN103/ Kids start hacking into gaming accounts...and then one person figures out how to do SIM swapping..and it escalates from there

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> Where from and how do they get the knowledge to break in these places being so young? There's a reason they're doing that and someone like Theo de Raadt is bringing us OpenSSH (and OpenBSD). In computer security defending is much harder than attacking. It's not even comparable seen how gigantic the gap is. (dark side) Hacking is easy (and, yes, I did it when I was late teenager/early twenty-ager). Protecting stuff is the hard part.

MrMcCall 2y ago
Yes, the attacker only has to find one weak point, but the defender must find and fix all weak points.
jazz9k 2y ago
People actually good at offensive security (not just script kiddies) are paid much higher salaries than people on the defensive side. Defense isn't actually that difficult. 99% is keeping your software updated and configured correctly with industry standards. Most employees at larger companies are lazy and don't want to take the extra time to make something secure.
randomcarbloke 2y ago
For every script kiddie there is a box-ticker of a security professional. The actually talented are few and far between.

qwery 2y ago

What's the average age? The perpetrator described in the article is in his mid-20s.

snowwrestler 2y ago

Potentially unpopular opinion here, but one explanation for how youngsters are able to this stuff is that it’s not actually that hard to do these sorts of attacks. It’s hard to do these attacks and get away with it, but actually many of these kids do not get away with it, at least if they are based in Western nations that actually try to stop it. But investigations move slowly and so there is a time gap where it looks like they did. In other words I think the explanation is as much “young men overestimate their abilities” as it is talent for doing this type of work. Specifically their ability to get away with it.

liendolucas 2y ago
I was thinking not only about what you said but maybe it's just kids that have access to exploits/tools/techniques but not a very deep knowledge to put all these things just by themselves... Sort of script kiddies on batteries, but is just a guess/opinion of my own and could be wrong.