Alarm Raised On Teenage Hackers

Arno Igne writes to tell us that the number of underage participants in "high-tech" crimes has risen steeply in recent history. Reporting children as young as 11 swapping credit card details and asking for hacks, many are largely unskilled and thus more likely to get caught and arrested. "Communities and forums spring up where people start to swap malicious programs, knowledge and sometimes stolen data. Some also look for exploits and virus code that can be run against the social networking sites popular with many young people. Some then try to peddle or use the details or accounts they net in this way. Mr Boyd said he spent a lot of time tracking down the creators of many of the nuisance programs written to exploit users of social networking sites and the culprit was often a teenager."

Comments

"Underage"?

[Sockatume]

At what age does high-tech crime become legal then?

Using kids

[Ethanol-fueled]

There are cases of Immigrant smuggling where the drivers were juveniles because juveniles are much more difficult to prosecute.

That's how I'd operate if I were a fraudster - have the kids to the dirty work and give them a cut. There are hordes of bored shithead suburban kids who would love to be "elite haxxors" and they would most likely avoid prosecution the first time.

I forget the term...

[MyLongNickName]

I forget the term, but there are laws on the books that state that if you are a landlord, and you continually have tenants who engage in criminal activity that the authorities can confiscate the house. It is a slow process, but the point is that if you own the property that you have some responsibility in insuring that it isn't being used for purposes that are harmful to society.

Apply that to social networking sites and...