Tech
Teen hackers aren’t the problem. They’re the wake-up call | Computer Weekly
The face of cyber crime has changed. It’s no longer the cliche of a shadowy figure operating in anonymity from their basement. Today, some of the most disruptive attacks are being carried out by smart, curious teenagers, often still in school and forming their identity, but already capable of breaching billion-dollar systems. The global cost of cyber crime in 2025 is expected to hit $10.5tn (£7.7tn) – the global cost of Covid.
Recent cases have exposed this uncomfortable reality. Multi-million pound attacks on well known UK companies Co-op, M&S, and Harrods have been traced to individuals aged 17, 19, and 20. Scattered Spider is the most recent, most famous case, but it isn’t an isolated event – the average age of someone arrested for cyber crime is 19, compared to 34 for other crimes. Law enforcement is understandably cautious in how they talk about these cases due to the vulnerability of those involved, but the pattern is clear.
The uncomfortable truth is that these young people are not criminal masterminds. Europol found 69% of European teens have committed a cyber crime or misdemeanor. These are middle-of-the-curve kids, not hardened hackers, emboldened by cash, with years of professional experience. They are symptoms of a much broader failure to engage with the emerging reality of a generation that learns, explores and socialises online, and increasingly pushes boundaries there too.
We need to stop treating teenage cyber crime as an isolated behavioural issue
What we’re seeing is a societal and educational blind spot, where the true failure is a lack of guidance, development, and opportunity. These teenagers aren’t joining gangs on street corners, which does come with a code of ethics in its own way. They’re testing code and pushing systems because they’re curious, driven, and have nowhere else to aim that energy. This natural inclination, when nurtured, is the foundation of intelligence and underpins all innovation. As Steve Jobs said, “Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” We need to celebrate this curiosity rather than stifling it.
In many cases, they don’t fully understand the legal consequences. They’re experimenting, often for recognition in the Discord servers that egg them on, sometimes for the challenge itself. The system fails to spot their potential early on and only responds once they cross a line. That’s not a security strategy, it’s a failure of imagination from all involved.
As we mention ethics above, every talking point comes back to young people being left to figure out the rules of an online world without the guidance or opportunities that might direct them towards something constructive. Organised crime groups have already recognised this and are actively recruiting. Networks like The Com or 764 on Discord and Telegram have groomed children in private chat groups, coercing them into extortion, doxing, self-harm material, and laundering stolen data. Young recruits often remain unaware of the full magnitude of their crimes until it’s far too late.
Every organisation that relies on digital systems – which is to say, obviously, is nearly all of them – is now facing a growing threat landscape and a critical shortage of talent to defend against it. Globally, there are nearly five million unfilled cyber security roles. At the same time, governments, businesses and schools continue to treat cyber security as a niche subject rather than a foundational skill set. It’s taken quite literally decades to have an appropriate amount of technology literacy at schools as preparation for a world where careers are increasingly moving solely online. Yet, there is an entire generation of natural born hackers.
If we took half the effort we spend on reacting to youth cyber crime and redirected it toward early education, real-world challenges and career pathways in cyber, we could start converting those vulnerabilities into national assets. The UK government has taken a step towards this with the TechFirst programme, investing £187m over four years to impact a million British kids in cyber, AI, and engineering.
What do we need to do to create change?
We need to meet kids where they are, on gaming platforms, watching content, and on social media, to spark passion for cyber. Here at The Hacking Games, our AI platform, HAPTAI, does exactly that. It looks at gaming behaviours and performances, modding, psychographics, and tests aptitudes for cyber skills, offering a solution for inspiring, evaluating, and placing talent.
A great example of this step in the right direction is The Hacking Games recent community partnership with Co-op. This new partnership will combine Co-op’s reach into every post code area of the UK, community expertise, 38 Co-op Academy schools, 20,000 students, and their 6.5 million member base with The Hacking Games’ extensive knowledge and expertise in cyber crime.
Having been attacked and understanding the implications, Co-op wants to help prevent cyber crime before it starts by supporting young people to put their skills to good use. By opening doors and widening access, it aims to reduce risk and offer real alternatives to those who might otherwise be led down the wrong path.
The partnership, a long term initiative with ambitions to develop into a large scale national movement, activated through a wide scale, multi-channel approach, begins with an independent research study led by professor Jonathan Lusthaus of the University of Oxford, a leading expert on the social dimensions of cyber crime and hacking, with the findings informing future prevention strategies.
What these stories of teen hackers really reveal is a failure to connect the dots.
If a 16-year-old manages to breach a corporation’s defences, that’s not just a lapse in cyber security, it’s an indictment of every system that failed to notice their capabilities sooner.
But we don’t have to wait for more young people to be caught on the wrong side of the law to start changing that. The talent is already here. It’s in the schools. It’s online. It’s writing scripts, testing limits, and trying to figure out where it fits in.
If we build the right pathways, these young people could be our greatest line of defence. Ignore them, and they may just become the next threat. We need to create a generation of ethical hackers to make the world safer.
Fergus Hay is co-founder and CEO at The Hacking Games.
HBO knows you’re bored and cold. It wants you to Max and chill with Noah Wyle in scrubs. The company offers some of the best Cyber Monday streaming deals with a ridiculously low-priced $3/month offer for basic HBO Max (it’s the version with ads and 2K streaming, but still, super-cheap). Disney Plus and Hulu deals are bundled up for $5/month. Apple TV wants back in your life for $6.
Of course, this deal is only meant for new customers. Not boring ol’ existing customers. If you already have basic HBO Max, you’re already paying $11 for the same service, and HBO would like you to keep doing that. Streaming apps are banking on you being complacent and happy in your streaming life. Maybe they’re even taking you for granted.
Sometimes you can get the current deal just by threatening to cancel, or actually canceling, your account. Suddenly, you’re an exciting new customer again! Another method is by using an alternate email account (perhaps your spouse’s or roommate’s?) and alternate payment information as a new customer. If you do use a burner email (you did not hear this from me), check in on your favorite app’s terms of service to make sure you’re not in violation by re-enrolling with different emails. I’ll also issue the caveat that you lose all your viewing data and tailored suggestions if you sign up anew.
But times and wallets are tight! And $3 HBO Max sounds pretty good. After all, every middle-aged American man needs to rewatch The Wire once every five years or so—assuming he’s not the kind of middle-aged man who rewatches The Sopranos instead. Here are the current best streaming deals for Cyber Monday 2025.
Devon Maloney; ARCHIVE ID: 546772
Regular price: $80
The UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) Connect 25 conference has opened in Birmingham with a keynote session recognising the challenges business face.
The user group itself has adapted to changes in the technology market such as the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in business applications and the economic climate that has a profound effect on its members’ ability to deliver value with enterprise technology.
In his keynote presentation, Conor Riordan, chair of UKISUG, said: “As an organisation, we have to change, to position ourselves as we move from the old to the new.”
The user group has a 2030 plan, recognising the shifts in enterprise software. For instance, there is the shift to no-code and low-code tooling, which has implications on the agility of enterprise software development. Riordan noted that the current business climate and geopolitical volatility means that there is a huge pressure to reduce costs, leading to cuts in training budgets and the challenge of delivering more with less, adding: “We need to have process change.”
Moving to a future where organisations are using data to make more dependable decisions, Riordan noted that SAP is moving to a dynamic ecosystem of applications and AI, but the challenge is how quickly businesses can start taking advantage of the AI now available in their business applications. “We see members say SAP AI will help them,” Riordan said.
But many are concerned how the new technology now available will deliver a return on investment (ROI). For Riordan, IT decision-makers need to be wary of tackling the so-called low-hanging fruit, the use cases that the industry sells to the executive team: “It is really complex work, and the low-hanging fruit is not that low hanging. It will take years, not months, to deliver value.”
A poll of delegates at the conference found that 78% of respondents are just getting started with AI, while 29% say their AI initiatives have under-delivered.
“This stuff is not easy,” Riordan said, adding that the challenge is one of process re-engineering and culture change, and that he believes humans need to be at the centre of decision-making. “We ask partners to be reasonable in their productivity claims so we can all succeed together.”
The Value of AI in the UK: Growth, people & data from SAP and Oxford Economics, which was published in October 2025, notes that customers are investing £16m in AI on average this year. The report’s authors predict this will increase by 40% within the next two years. However, the theme coming out of the keynote session at Connect25 is that few companies are really using AI.
Another big topic covered during the keynote is the end of support for SAP products. With SAP’s 2027 maintenance deadline for SAP ECC 6.0 fast approaching, many organisations are now embarking on their migration journey to SAP S/4Hana. More than half (54%) of respondents said that gaining access to SAP’s AI offerings will influence their future deployment of SAP.
Among attendees of Connect25, 49% said they are working towards the 2027 deadline. Riordan called on SAP to help customers to move to the cloud and build a tangible business case.
During her keynote speech, Leila Romane, managing director of SAP UK & Ireland, spoke about the AI opportunity, saying: “We are helping customers unleash new value with business AI.”
SAP’s strategy is to drive business value through the power of AI, data and its enterprise applications, with the SAP Cloud integral in SAP’s strategy to deliver AI-enablement across its enterprise software suite. Romane said SAP recognised that its customers were all at different stages of their cloud journey, adding: “Our commitment is to help you move.”
Analysis from GlobalData is forecasting that fixed wireless access (FWA) service revenue in Hong Kong is expected to increase at a “healthy” compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% between 2025 and 2030.
The latest Hong Kong Total Fixed Communications Forecast set out to quantify current and future demand and spending on mobile services for the special administrative region of China. It noted that growth was being driven by Hong Kong’s extensive 5G network coverage and could also be attributed to local operators’ efforts to expand FWA services and position it as an alternative to traditional fibre broadband services for both residential and commercial sectors, meeting growing demand for high-speed connectivity in areas where extending fibre lines is challenging.
“High-density urban and suburban centres of Hong Kong create a strong business case for FWA services due to their cost-effective and rapid deployments without the complex infrastructure and civil work required for extending fibre-optic lines to such locations,” said Neha Misra, senior analyst at GlobalData.
“Competitive, feature-rich plans from the operators will also help drive its adoption over the forecast period. For instance, HKBN’s 5G Home Broadband Plan provides unlimited 5G broadband data (subject to a 300GB with a fair-usage policy) for HKD118 per month on a 24-month contract, along with a seven-day trial guarantee. The plan also includes a waiver of the HKD28 monthly administration fee and complimentary access to the basic HomeShield security plan.”
In addition to HKBN, the study noted that operators such as 3 Hong Kong and HKT are also using their extensive 5G networks to offer home broadband services, particularly in areas with limited fibre infrastructure. It cited HKT as recently having successfully deployed mmWave-based FWA to deliver ultra-high-speed internet to rural areas and outlying islands.
“Growing demand for FWA provides operators a strong revenue opportunity by expanding home and SME broadband without the high capital intensity of fibre roll-out,” Misra added. “By leveraging nationwide 5G coverage, introducing competitively priced service plans and bundling digital home services, operators can unlock higher ARPU [average revenue per user], accelerate market penetration in underserved areas and diversify beyond traditional revenues.”
GlobalData believes the Hong Kong government’s smart city initiatives will also open new opportunities for FWA, especially 5G FWA, which can deliver high-speed internet to power applications such as the digital economy, digital governance and e-health services, while supporting the city’s dense urban environment and digital transformation goals under the Smart City Blueprint 2.0.
The original blueprint was set out in December 2017, outlining 76 initiatives under six smart areas, namely Smart Mobility, Smart Living, Smart Environment, Smart People, Smart Government and Smart Economy. Blueprint 2.0 puts forth more than 130 initiatives that continue to enhance and expand existing city management measures and services. The new initiatives aim to bring benefits and convenience to the public so that residents can better perceive the benefits of smart city innovation and technology.
UK budget mildly deflationary; debt to climb past 106%: Fitch
OGRA Announces LPG Price Increase for December – SUCH TV
Kristen Bell, Dax Shepherd kids call mom villain in parents’ movie
-
Sports1 week agoWATCH: Ronaldo scores spectacular bicycle kick
-
Entertainment1 week agoWelcome to Derry’ episode 5 delivers shocking twist
-
Politics1 week agoWashington and Kyiv Stress Any Peace Deal Must Fully Respect Ukraine’s Sovereignty
-
Business1 week agoKey economic data and trends that will shape Rachel Reeves’ Budget
-
Politics1 week ago53,000 Sikhs vote in Ottawa Khalistan Referendum amid Carney-Modi trade talks scrutiny
-
Tech6 days agoWake Up—the Best Black Friday Mattress Sales Are Here
-
Fashion1 week agoCanada’s Lululemon unveils team Canada kit for Milano Cortina 2026
-
Tech1 day agoGet Your Steps In From Your Home Office With This Walking Pad—On Sale This Week