Exteen hackers warn parents are clueless as children steal millions Money News Sky News
pThe Money team reveals children as young as seven are being referred to Britains national cybercrime intervention programme Former hackers jailed for stealing millions warn parents its easier than ever for children to fall down the rabbit hole and the first step is often gamingpp
Live news reporter
bradleyjyoung
ppSaturday 6 December 2025 1031 UKppChildren as young as seven are being referred to Britains national cybercrime intervention programme the Money team can reveal as companies reel from multimillionpound hacksppThe average age of referrals to Cyber Choices which receives people committing or intending to commit entrylevel cybercrime is just 15 this financial year with the youngest only seven the National Crime Agency told MoneyppThe NCA is seeing a yearonyear increase in referrals mostly gamers aged 10 to 16 at the same time as insurance payouts to hacked UK businesses have rocketed 230ppI was right around that age says Ricky Handschumacher a former cybercriminal whose introduction to hacking on a videogame aged 15 led him to a fouryear federal prison sentence for stealing 76m in cryptocurrencyppThey are even more vulnerable right now than back then because its so mainstreamppHandschumacher now 32 is one of two notorious crypto hackers who warned that teenagers were increasingly following the same path in exclusive interviews with MoneyppIt seems to be growing more and more its not stopping says Handschumacher from Floridapp
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ppYou have to really pay attention to what your kids doing You may think my kid would never do that but dont be so sureppSome of these 15 16yearolds theyre sitting on millionsppAt least 105 referrals of all ages have been made this financial year to the Cyber Choices programme but thats just the start warns Jonathan Broadbent a senior officer at the NCAs National Cyber Crime UnitppI dont think the referrals represent the full scale of the threat Broadbent warns Cybercrime against schools that is really quite prevalent across the countryppStudents caused 57 of insider data breaches in schools between January 2022 and August 2024 according to the Information Commissioners OfficeppEscalating attacksppBritain has been given a sense of its scale in a spate of recent multimillionpound attacksppMarks Spencer lost 136m to a cyberattack in April that halted online orders for weeks while the data of 65m customers was stolen from CoopppHackers shut down Jaguar Land Rover factories for five weeks in August causing 19bn in disruption to the UK economy according to the Cyber Monitoring CentreppAn attack on Transport for London caused months of disruption and nursery chain Kido was held to ransom in SeptemberppTeenagers and young adults were among the suspects in all these casesppThe gaming pathwayppGaming which is participated in by 97 of children aged eight to 17 is a major pathway into cybercrime according to BroadbentppIt was a route followed by both Handschumacher and another reformed hacker Joseph Harris 28 who was jailed for stealing 14m in cryptocurrency in 2018ppHis entry to hacking at the age of 12 was Club Penguin a childrens game where players navigate a cartoon penguin through a wintery island full of sled races dance contests and treasure huntsppIts an image that is incongruous with the sight of Secret Service Agents swarming a Missouri petrol station eight years later and pointing their guns at himppIt all started in 2010 Harris says when he found a bug in Club Penguin allowing him to force the game to loop when he collected coins affording him rare items from the ingame shopppTutorials on YouTube convinced him it was quicker to phone email providers and trick his way into accounts that already owned these outfits and accessoriesppIt sounds silly because its a childrens game but some of those items were worth thousands of dollars says HarrisppAnd by age 13 thats what he was making selling the accounts to Club Penguin enthusiasts willing to give him 2000 for the privilegeppThe thrill and the accomplishment was more of a rush for me than the actual money Harris saysppI had really bad ADHD so I couldnt focus on school so a lot of the time I didnt have the best gradesppHarris who now runs cybersecurity firm Dynamo adds Hacking was such an interesting topic that I feel my hyperfixation let me focus on it heavilyppNeurodiversityppA link between neurodiversity and hacking proficiency has been suggested by some research says chartered psychologist professor John McAlaneyppApproximately 17 of people referred to the British cybercrime investigation groups Cyber Prevent and Pursue between 2017 and 2020 were diagnosed with autism or selfreferred as having autisticlike traits far higher than the 12 recorded in the general populationppWhile the ability to hyperfocus or detect patterns may be relevant theres quite a lot of stereotyping going on says McAlaney author of Forensic Perspectives On CybercrimeppHackers arent lone wolves with limited social skills sitting in a dark room looking at a glowing screen he saysppIn fact it is the social identity and positive reinforcement provided by hacking communities that can appeal to a teenagers desire to find a sense of belonging he says especially for someone who hasnt felt understood in the offline worldppYou do get what can be surprisingly quite nice support networks on what may look like a criminal hacking forumppSense of communityppUnlike his unease at school Harris started to feel at home on hacking forums as he looked for new targets such as Youtube PlayStation and Xbox accountsppUsers were willing to pay 500 to 1000 for desirable usernames in the same way that motorists splash out on rare numberplatesppAged 15 Harris exploited software bugs to steal personal data and trick customer support staff into handing over account access before selling them onppHed receive 2000 a month and more importantly the approval of his online friendsppI didnt have that much confidence and finally people were praising me for getting these usernames he saysppI started thinking maybe I am okayppThis is a common experience among children referred to Cyber Choices says Broadbent Often these young individuals can be isolated they might be in a bedroom and maybe not engage with their families too much and they get that sense of community from being on things like forumsppBut like McAlaney Broadbent stresses there is no typical profile for a teenage cybercriminalppAnyone can be a hackerppTake Handschumacher who was a rising student baseball star playing Halo 3 a game sold to 12 million people when he first encountered hackingppA competitor on the multiplayer scifi combat game targeted him with a DDoS a cyberattack that overloads a victims internet connectionppIts the kind of hack that Broadbent commonly sees carried out by children referred to Cyber Choices alongside remote access trojans which allow hackers to access laptop camerasppHow are they doing that How can I do that Handschumacher asked himself as his helpless Halo soldier froze allowing the hacker to kill themppHe searched gaming forums leading to hacking forums and soon he was stealing Xbox Instagram and Twitter accounts just like HarrisppIn my case it was strictly for money he saysppAs a teenager you like to flex You like to be able to buy whatever you want to buy and do whatever you want to doppTheir motivations may differ but so similar were the pairs path into hacking that they met when Handschumacher stole a PlayStation account from Harris that the latter had himself hackedppWe started by butting heads says Harris but by the time theyd started stealing straight from cryptocurrency wallets in their late teens and early twenties they were collaborating and they werent the only onesppDisorganised crimeppWhen Handschumacher stepped outside his front door in 2018 and found about 50 cop cars surrounding him he was accused of being a member of an international hacking gang named The CommunityppIts a mafiaesque description often deployed by law enforcement the media and criminals themselves including in the attacks on MS Coop and Harrods linked to Scattered Spider and the attack on JLR claimed by Scattered Lapsus HuntersppSome hackers do operate like this says Alexandra Fedosimova digital footprint analyst at cybersecurity firm KasperskyppExperienced cybercriminals will recruit greener ones over Telegram or the dark web to carry out timely grunt work for cash like accessing a companys online infrastructure before stepping in themselves to steal data she saysppBut Harris and Handschumacher describe a far more fluid loose network of teenagers and young adults who werent taking their crimes very seriouslyppAny one job could include friends friends of friends a recommendation from an acquaintance and so on some of whom used their real names while others remained anonymousppYou wouldnt have a specific group says Handschumacher adding he didnt know some of his codefendantsppIndeed the group Scattered Lapsus Hunters is thought to be made up of hackers formerly part of three different groups Shiny Hunters Lapsus and Scattered Spider who themselves are said to have emerged from The CommunityppAnother gameppBroadbent says child hackers he sees are often bored curious or techtalented children who wanted a community a challenge competition and status among their peers and like most teenagers were willing to push boundaries to get itppIt was more of the challenge the thrill the rush you get from getting those big numbers says Harris who says he stole just under 30m in crypto the year he was caughtppBesides a few videogames he says he never spent much stolen cash remaining in a rented house with five roommates for 400 a monthppYour moral compass fades he says I was thinking its on the internet so I didnt think it was that badppHandschumacher who spent 250000 on jet skis offroad vehicles and VIP access to clubs for his friends agreesppIts not in their house it was just an online currency so what is the actual crime he says he thought at the timeppBut some of victims targeted by Handschumacher and his codefendants lost their entire retirement savings according to the US Attorneys OfficeppYou dont see these people face to face so you dont realise the damage youre doing especially when it comes to crypto Handschumacher saysppThis is called the disinhibition effect explains McAlaney Online interactions feel less real to us than offline interactions which can make us be more impulsive and more extreme onlineppKnowing there is a victim on an intellectual level doesnt impress on hackers the consequences for the victim in the same way as sitting opposite them might he saysppOur brains have evolved over thousands of years and have not really caught up with the fact that online technology existsppCrashing downppFor several years Harris made millions exploiting software bugs or using password database breaches to gain access to email accounts used by crypto ownersppMeanwhile Handschumacher was perfecting simswapping hacks which meant finding enough personal data to impersonate a victim and convince their mobile network provider to transfer their number to a new sim card and bypass crypto wallet authenticationppSuccess would mean severing the victims phone connection firing the starting gun on a race to steal the victims cryptocurrency before they realised what had happenedppThis type of hack carried out separately would lead law enforcement to both Harris and Handschumacher in 2018ppPlainclothes secret service officers swarmed a petrol station that Harris then aged 21 was usingppThey pointed a gun at me I thought I was getting robbed at first he saysppRead more long readsThe 40 jobs most at risk from AI and 40 it cant touchWhy millions of Britons are off work longterm sickBritains shrinking families An economic timebombppHarris was sentenced to 16 months for moneylaundering grand theft identity theft and hacking he says serving eight months behind barsppHandschumacher then aged 25 with a fiance and two children was confronted by dozens of officers as he left work one morningppThat was it he says It all came crashing down after thatppHe served 27 months of a fouryear sentence handed to him in February 2022 due to pandemic delays primarily for conspiracy to commit wire fraudppHacking gamesppThe growing number of cybercriminals comes amid a global shortage of cybersecurity professionalsppSome four million staff members are needed worldwide with 67 of organisations facing a moderatetocritical skills gap according to the World Economic ForumppThe issue is the industry is really conventional in how they look at talent says Fergus Hay founder of the Hacking Games THG an organisation trying to redirect teenage hackers towards legitimate jobs in cyberppThe cyber industry looks for staff on LinkedIn expects computer science degrees and other official certificates and demands a large amount of work experience for its entrylevel jobsppWhat theyre missing Hay says is an entire generation who are developing their skills in nonconventional areas like gamingppEvery hacker is a gamer and thats because its puzzlesolving and logic mindsetsppFind tips and deals in the Money blogppTHG is working on a CVlike recruitment programme seen by the Money team that determines an applicants hacking aptitude using nontraditional metrics such as gaming performance and modifications to match hackers with careers in cyberppTelling teenagers these jobs exist is part of the challenge so THG is running education and awareness campaigns on social media connecting reformed hackers with students in Coop schools and plans to roll out hacking eSports tournaments next yearppCyber Choices is undertaking similar outreach with visits to schools and workshops educating children about computer misuse law and promoting legal cyber opportunitiesppBut cold hard cash needs to be part of the answer too Handschumacher and Harris sayppBug huntingppI dont have any cybersecurity certificates Im all selftaught everything so its hard to work for a normal company says HandschumacherppThe only way for unqualified hackers to apply their skills ethically is by collecting socalled bug bountiesppThese are payments offered by companies for finding bugs in their systems before an unethical hacker does but the payouts are tiny compared to the value of some of the bugsppHarris says he found and reported a critical vulnerability in a gambling website that could have allowed a cybercriminal to withdraw infinite moneyppHe was paid 2500 for his efforts he says not enough to put off a wouldbe teenage cybercriminalppThey need to up payments by double to triple in my opinion then I think thered be more incentive to do them says HarrisppHandschumacher put it plainly Youre going to either make a million or a thousand I guarantee you 99 of 16yearsolds are going to take the millionp
Live news reporter
bradleyjyoung
ppSaturday 6 December 2025 1031 UKppChildren as young as seven are being referred to Britains national cybercrime intervention programme the Money team can reveal as companies reel from multimillionpound hacksppThe average age of referrals to Cyber Choices which receives people committing or intending to commit entrylevel cybercrime is just 15 this financial year with the youngest only seven the National Crime Agency told MoneyppThe NCA is seeing a yearonyear increase in referrals mostly gamers aged 10 to 16 at the same time as insurance payouts to hacked UK businesses have rocketed 230ppI was right around that age says Ricky Handschumacher a former cybercriminal whose introduction to hacking on a videogame aged 15 led him to a fouryear federal prison sentence for stealing 76m in cryptocurrencyppThey are even more vulnerable right now than back then because its so mainstreamppHandschumacher now 32 is one of two notorious crypto hackers who warned that teenagers were increasingly following the same path in exclusive interviews with MoneyppIt seems to be growing more and more its not stopping says Handschumacher from Floridapp
London councils hit by cyber attack with data potentially compromised
pp
Direct cost of Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack which impacted UK economic growth revealed
pp
MS reveals cost of cyber attack as profit almost wiped out
ppYou have to really pay attention to what your kids doing You may think my kid would never do that but dont be so sureppSome of these 15 16yearolds theyre sitting on millionsppAt least 105 referrals of all ages have been made this financial year to the Cyber Choices programme but thats just the start warns Jonathan Broadbent a senior officer at the NCAs National Cyber Crime UnitppI dont think the referrals represent the full scale of the threat Broadbent warns Cybercrime against schools that is really quite prevalent across the countryppStudents caused 57 of insider data breaches in schools between January 2022 and August 2024 according to the Information Commissioners OfficeppEscalating attacksppBritain has been given a sense of its scale in a spate of recent multimillionpound attacksppMarks Spencer lost 136m to a cyberattack in April that halted online orders for weeks while the data of 65m customers was stolen from CoopppHackers shut down Jaguar Land Rover factories for five weeks in August causing 19bn in disruption to the UK economy according to the Cyber Monitoring CentreppAn attack on Transport for London caused months of disruption and nursery chain Kido was held to ransom in SeptemberppTeenagers and young adults were among the suspects in all these casesppThe gaming pathwayppGaming which is participated in by 97 of children aged eight to 17 is a major pathway into cybercrime according to BroadbentppIt was a route followed by both Handschumacher and another reformed hacker Joseph Harris 28 who was jailed for stealing 14m in cryptocurrency in 2018ppHis entry to hacking at the age of 12 was Club Penguin a childrens game where players navigate a cartoon penguin through a wintery island full of sled races dance contests and treasure huntsppIts an image that is incongruous with the sight of Secret Service Agents swarming a Missouri petrol station eight years later and pointing their guns at himppIt all started in 2010 Harris says when he found a bug in Club Penguin allowing him to force the game to loop when he collected coins affording him rare items from the ingame shopppTutorials on YouTube convinced him it was quicker to phone email providers and trick his way into accounts that already owned these outfits and accessoriesppIt sounds silly because its a childrens game but some of those items were worth thousands of dollars says HarrisppAnd by age 13 thats what he was making selling the accounts to Club Penguin enthusiasts willing to give him 2000 for the privilegeppThe thrill and the accomplishment was more of a rush for me than the actual money Harris saysppI had really bad ADHD so I couldnt focus on school so a lot of the time I didnt have the best gradesppHarris who now runs cybersecurity firm Dynamo adds Hacking was such an interesting topic that I feel my hyperfixation let me focus on it heavilyppNeurodiversityppA link between neurodiversity and hacking proficiency has been suggested by some research says chartered psychologist professor John McAlaneyppApproximately 17 of people referred to the British cybercrime investigation groups Cyber Prevent and Pursue between 2017 and 2020 were diagnosed with autism or selfreferred as having autisticlike traits far higher than the 12 recorded in the general populationppWhile the ability to hyperfocus or detect patterns may be relevant theres quite a lot of stereotyping going on says McAlaney author of Forensic Perspectives On CybercrimeppHackers arent lone wolves with limited social skills sitting in a dark room looking at a glowing screen he saysppIn fact it is the social identity and positive reinforcement provided by hacking communities that can appeal to a teenagers desire to find a sense of belonging he says especially for someone who hasnt felt understood in the offline worldppYou do get what can be surprisingly quite nice support networks on what may look like a criminal hacking forumppSense of communityppUnlike his unease at school Harris started to feel at home on hacking forums as he looked for new targets such as Youtube PlayStation and Xbox accountsppUsers were willing to pay 500 to 1000 for desirable usernames in the same way that motorists splash out on rare numberplatesppAged 15 Harris exploited software bugs to steal personal data and trick customer support staff into handing over account access before selling them onppHed receive 2000 a month and more importantly the approval of his online friendsppI didnt have that much confidence and finally people were praising me for getting these usernames he saysppI started thinking maybe I am okayppThis is a common experience among children referred to Cyber Choices says Broadbent Often these young individuals can be isolated they might be in a bedroom and maybe not engage with their families too much and they get that sense of community from being on things like forumsppBut like McAlaney Broadbent stresses there is no typical profile for a teenage cybercriminalppAnyone can be a hackerppTake Handschumacher who was a rising student baseball star playing Halo 3 a game sold to 12 million people when he first encountered hackingppA competitor on the multiplayer scifi combat game targeted him with a DDoS a cyberattack that overloads a victims internet connectionppIts the kind of hack that Broadbent commonly sees carried out by children referred to Cyber Choices alongside remote access trojans which allow hackers to access laptop camerasppHow are they doing that How can I do that Handschumacher asked himself as his helpless Halo soldier froze allowing the hacker to kill themppHe searched gaming forums leading to hacking forums and soon he was stealing Xbox Instagram and Twitter accounts just like HarrisppIn my case it was strictly for money he saysppAs a teenager you like to flex You like to be able to buy whatever you want to buy and do whatever you want to doppTheir motivations may differ but so similar were the pairs path into hacking that they met when Handschumacher stole a PlayStation account from Harris that the latter had himself hackedppWe started by butting heads says Harris but by the time theyd started stealing straight from cryptocurrency wallets in their late teens and early twenties they were collaborating and they werent the only onesppDisorganised crimeppWhen Handschumacher stepped outside his front door in 2018 and found about 50 cop cars surrounding him he was accused of being a member of an international hacking gang named The CommunityppIts a mafiaesque description often deployed by law enforcement the media and criminals themselves including in the attacks on MS Coop and Harrods linked to Scattered Spider and the attack on JLR claimed by Scattered Lapsus HuntersppSome hackers do operate like this says Alexandra Fedosimova digital footprint analyst at cybersecurity firm KasperskyppExperienced cybercriminals will recruit greener ones over Telegram or the dark web to carry out timely grunt work for cash like accessing a companys online infrastructure before stepping in themselves to steal data she saysppBut Harris and Handschumacher describe a far more fluid loose network of teenagers and young adults who werent taking their crimes very seriouslyppAny one job could include friends friends of friends a recommendation from an acquaintance and so on some of whom used their real names while others remained anonymousppYou wouldnt have a specific group says Handschumacher adding he didnt know some of his codefendantsppIndeed the group Scattered Lapsus Hunters is thought to be made up of hackers formerly part of three different groups Shiny Hunters Lapsus and Scattered Spider who themselves are said to have emerged from The CommunityppAnother gameppBroadbent says child hackers he sees are often bored curious or techtalented children who wanted a community a challenge competition and status among their peers and like most teenagers were willing to push boundaries to get itppIt was more of the challenge the thrill the rush you get from getting those big numbers says Harris who says he stole just under 30m in crypto the year he was caughtppBesides a few videogames he says he never spent much stolen cash remaining in a rented house with five roommates for 400 a monthppYour moral compass fades he says I was thinking its on the internet so I didnt think it was that badppHandschumacher who spent 250000 on jet skis offroad vehicles and VIP access to clubs for his friends agreesppIts not in their house it was just an online currency so what is the actual crime he says he thought at the timeppBut some of victims targeted by Handschumacher and his codefendants lost their entire retirement savings according to the US Attorneys OfficeppYou dont see these people face to face so you dont realise the damage youre doing especially when it comes to crypto Handschumacher saysppThis is called the disinhibition effect explains McAlaney Online interactions feel less real to us than offline interactions which can make us be more impulsive and more extreme onlineppKnowing there is a victim on an intellectual level doesnt impress on hackers the consequences for the victim in the same way as sitting opposite them might he saysppOur brains have evolved over thousands of years and have not really caught up with the fact that online technology existsppCrashing downppFor several years Harris made millions exploiting software bugs or using password database breaches to gain access to email accounts used by crypto ownersppMeanwhile Handschumacher was perfecting simswapping hacks which meant finding enough personal data to impersonate a victim and convince their mobile network provider to transfer their number to a new sim card and bypass crypto wallet authenticationppSuccess would mean severing the victims phone connection firing the starting gun on a race to steal the victims cryptocurrency before they realised what had happenedppThis type of hack carried out separately would lead law enforcement to both Harris and Handschumacher in 2018ppPlainclothes secret service officers swarmed a petrol station that Harris then aged 21 was usingppThey pointed a gun at me I thought I was getting robbed at first he saysppRead more long readsThe 40 jobs most at risk from AI and 40 it cant touchWhy millions of Britons are off work longterm sickBritains shrinking families An economic timebombppHarris was sentenced to 16 months for moneylaundering grand theft identity theft and hacking he says serving eight months behind barsppHandschumacher then aged 25 with a fiance and two children was confronted by dozens of officers as he left work one morningppThat was it he says It all came crashing down after thatppHe served 27 months of a fouryear sentence handed to him in February 2022 due to pandemic delays primarily for conspiracy to commit wire fraudppHacking gamesppThe growing number of cybercriminals comes amid a global shortage of cybersecurity professionalsppSome four million staff members are needed worldwide with 67 of organisations facing a moderatetocritical skills gap according to the World Economic ForumppThe issue is the industry is really conventional in how they look at talent says Fergus Hay founder of the Hacking Games THG an organisation trying to redirect teenage hackers towards legitimate jobs in cyberppThe cyber industry looks for staff on LinkedIn expects computer science degrees and other official certificates and demands a large amount of work experience for its entrylevel jobsppWhat theyre missing Hay says is an entire generation who are developing their skills in nonconventional areas like gamingppEvery hacker is a gamer and thats because its puzzlesolving and logic mindsetsppFind tips and deals in the Money blogppTHG is working on a CVlike recruitment programme seen by the Money team that determines an applicants hacking aptitude using nontraditional metrics such as gaming performance and modifications to match hackers with careers in cyberppTelling teenagers these jobs exist is part of the challenge so THG is running education and awareness campaigns on social media connecting reformed hackers with students in Coop schools and plans to roll out hacking eSports tournaments next yearppCyber Choices is undertaking similar outreach with visits to schools and workshops educating children about computer misuse law and promoting legal cyber opportunitiesppBut cold hard cash needs to be part of the answer too Handschumacher and Harris sayppBug huntingppI dont have any cybersecurity certificates Im all selftaught everything so its hard to work for a normal company says HandschumacherppThe only way for unqualified hackers to apply their skills ethically is by collecting socalled bug bountiesppThese are payments offered by companies for finding bugs in their systems before an unethical hacker does but the payouts are tiny compared to the value of some of the bugsppHarris says he found and reported a critical vulnerability in a gambling website that could have allowed a cybercriminal to withdraw infinite moneyppHe was paid 2500 for his efforts he says not enough to put off a wouldbe teenage cybercriminalppThey need to up payments by double to triple in my opinion then I think thered be more incentive to do them says HarrisppHandschumacher put it plainly Youre going to either make a million or a thousand I guarantee you 99 of 16yearsolds are going to take the millionp
