A poster warning parents about the predictions and tools that children may use to engage in hacking is circulating on social media.
The poster, designed to educate parents who are not very tech-savvy, has been issued by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU) and lists various programs and tools commonly used for penetration testing and ethical hacking – along with the popular chat app Discord and the privacy-focused Tor Browser.
According to Gareth Illmann-Walker on Twitter, a self-described "White Hat open source geek," the poster was distributed to local schools via Walsall Council.
For the uninitiated, the term “white hat hacker” refers to someone who investigates networks and systems for leaks with the intention of reporting them before something really bad happens. It’s a respectable and occasionally lucrative “job.” “Black hat hackers” do the same thing, but not for good purposes.
While undoubtedly well-intentioned, the poster arguably warns more than it informs, to the extent that the National Crime Agency (NCA) – whose logo appears on the poster – has publicly distanced itself from the campaign.
Taking to Twitter, the NCA stated: “…the NCA was not involved in the production or release of this poster.”.
“There are many tools that tech-savvy children use, some of which can be used for both legal and illegal purposes, so it is vital that parents and children know how these tools can be used safely.”.
While Metasploit, Wi-Fi Pineapple, and the Kali Linux can theoretically be used for unethical and illegal purposes, that is not their intended purpose – they are officially used for detecting security vulnerabilities, simulating data collection, and network monitoring – they are called man-in-the-middle attacks, and learning about security.
Similarly, Discord is not a hacking tool. It has been used by hackers to distribute malware in the past, but that doesn't mean it's a hacking tool like WhatsApp, Signal , or Facebook Messenger.
The Tor browser is also not a hacking tool, although anyone engaging in unethical or illegal activity may want to use it to avoid detection by authorities.
Like the secure browsers and encrypted connections offered by most VPN providers, Tor Browser encrypts your traffic so that your ISP can't see your HTTP requests.
Again, Tor Browser's presence here is somewhat mysterious, like TunnelBear or ExpressVPN.
WMROCU, for its part, has not yet clarified what exactly happened with the NCA and whether it actually participated in the campaign.
