Ctrl + Alt + Chaos: How teenage hackers hijack the internet

Fiona Phillips reviews a new book investigating just who is behind the chaos sown by hackers

Anyone who works in cybersecurity will be familiar with the enduring stereotype of the teenage boy hunched in a dark bedroom, headphones on, fingers flying, wreaking global havoc between homework assignments. In Ctrl + Alt + Chaos, Joe Tidy (best known as the BBC’s first cybersecurity correspondent) plunges us headfirst into that world. What he reveals is troubling: a thriving, nihilistic sub-culture of bored, lonely boys whose online mischief has metastasised into serious, organised criminality.

The book is anchored by the story of Julius Kivimäki from Finland, once hailed as “the most hated hacker in history”. Through Kivimäki, Tidy charts the evolution of amateur hacking groups from mischievous pranksters into purveyors of cruelty so casual it borders on sociopathic. The Playstation Network takedown of Christmas Day feels almost quaint next to the chilling attack on a Finnish psychotherapy clinic, where cybercriminals demanded ransoms first from the organisation and then from the victims themselves. The subsequent publication of therapy notes, including those of children, had life-altering, and in some cases life-ending, consequences. These are not victimless economic crimes.

Drawing on years of investigative reporting, he describes teenage hacking communities as “a viper’s nest of backstabbing and hatred”. Many of their preferred tactics sound like a deranged menu of modern cruelty: DDoS attacks, extortion, doxxing and the now all-too-common “swatting”—the practice of sending armed police to an unsuspecting victim’s home after a fabricated emergency call. One hacker, we learn, even triggered a bomb threat on a plane so severe that F-16 fighter jets were scrambled. You don’t need much technical skill to call the local US police in your victim’s neighbourhood and pretend to be about to shoot your parents. Even swatting is now escalating to simply organising someone to put a brick through a victim’s window, and all from the comfort of your bedroom another continent away.

What emerges is a puzzle that should worry all of us: how is it that a group of unsupervised adolescents, motivated more by bragging rights than money, can disrupt titans like Sony and Microsoft? Tidy suggests that the culture of online showmanship, where notoriety is only a screenshot away, has turbocharged the escalation of harm, fuelled by social media and particularly the arrival of Twitter. Being an “edgelord” is its own currency; profit often comes second – especially if all you really want to buy in life are some top quality gaming headphones.

For lawyers, Tidy raises the point that too many of these teenagers glide through criminal justice systems with little more than a slap on the wrist. When the consequences are so mild, he argues, an “extra smug layer of comfort” settles in. It’s hard to deter someone who has learned that the worst-case scenario is a warning and a seized laptop, or at the very worst a suspended sentence or time in a juvenile jail with access to the internet. After all, these are minors and many criminal regimes don’t treat cybercrime as equal to physical violence, even if the real world impacts are equal.

One striking thread runs through the book: the near-total absence of girls. Tidy notes he has never met a female cybercriminal. Chats and comms are toxic environments, where racism, homophobia and misogyny dominant the interactions. We also hear about the women these hackers harassed in real life when they stopped talking to them. Recent debates around the TV show Adolescence and toxic masculinity are deeply connected to this debate. Cybercrime becomes a form of power for boys who feel they have none elsewhere.

So what should we do? Tidy offers ideas, though none are simple: police these groups like transnational cartels; improve cross-border policing; hand down harsher sentences that reflect real-world harm; or invest in education about the moral and human consequences of cybercrime. Divert young offenders into ethical hacking role if possible. A big question is raised about where the parents of these teenage boys play a role. One Grandma was delighted that her grandson wasn’t out on the streets getting into trouble, his online crimes invisible to her. Tidy flags the challenges of going down the parent blame game and the reality for parents in supervising this online activity, particularly in lower socio-economic households.

Ctrl + Alt + Chaos will shock you, scare you and make you ask the big questions about how to stop teenage boys hijacking the internet, for which, sadly, there are no easy answers without questioning society and our failure to wrap these boys in our arms and give them a better sense of purpose and direction.