2024-12-20
13 分钟We return to a conversation we had over the summer with Unit 221B’s Allison Nixon about young cybercriminals, radicalization, and the search for self in the virtual world.
From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here.
I'm Dina templewest and this is Click Here's Mic Drop.
Before I started covering cybersecurity, I spent years reporting on one of the marquee stories of the decade, terrorism.
And I eventually became a bit of an expert in this very niche thing, the way young men radicalize.
I even wrote a book about it.
Has been asking why terrorism runs in families.
Young Moroccans who have traveled to Syria to join isis.
They say their client was being fed a steady diet of far right content.
Since then, I've turned my attention away from terrorism and towards cyber.
And as Yogi Berra might say it, it seems deja vu all over again.
Many of these cybercriminals are young kids.
Possibly unable to a group of teenagers hacking casinos.
Kids who aren't old enough to drink are pulling off epic hacks.
And more often than not, they move from the world of online gaming to online crime.
Like the 15 year old who installed a backdoor in US military servers.
Or the gang of teenagers who swindled crypto investor Michael Turpin out of $24 million worth of crypto.
A lot of these online gangs are so reminiscent of old school street gangs.
It's really uncanny.
From recorded Future News, I'm Dena Templest and this is Click Here's Mic Drop, an extended cut of an interview we think you'd like to hear more of.
And today we're returning to a conversation I had over the summer with Allison Nixon.