Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) on Tuesday launched a new campaign to deter young people from becoming hackers after finding that the average age of suspects has fallen to 17.
The #CyberChoices campaign targets parents of children aged 12-15 who may be involved in cybercrime without their knowledge.
The relevant advertisement shows a teenager and his parents sitting on the couch in their home, and his parents bragging about how smart their son is and how good he is at IT.
It is only when they mention that their son joked about robbing a bank that the parents realize that he is actually a hacker, and the ad ends with the family being questioned by officers from the NCA, Britain's main body fighting organized crime, trafficking and cybercrime.
The service has observed that in recent years the age of hackers , especially those involved in cybercrime, has been getting younger and the average is 17 years old.
Richard Jones, the head of the Cybercrime Unit, said: “We know that criminalising young people is not the answer and with this campaign we want to encourage young people to use their skills more positively. These people are really smart and have real potential to do a great job but by choosing the path of crime they can quickly move from the lowest level of pranking to the highest level of serious crime.”
The campaign aims to inform parents about common forms of cybercrime such as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks that can hit websites by filling them with irrelevant data.
Young hackers are increasingly using software called Remote Access Trojans (RATs) that allow them to remotely monitor and take control of other computers. The youngest purchaser of this software was just 12 years old.
