Breeding the Next-Generation of Computer Hackers

The other week I was participating in a Computer Weekly / British Telecom workshop regarding Collaboration Technology.

I made the point that as well as using Technology to enable Collaboration we need to encourage people to take precautions not to freely share commercially sensitive or personal data.

I advised the other participants that most if not all of their new hires aged under 25 were amoral, in that they were accustomed to ignoring digital copyright and making illegal copies of musics, film etc, and didn’t see anything wrong in that. Some of the other workshop participants were of the same view, and that I should "get over it".

There now appears a timely survey courtesy of the internet security firm Trend Micro

The survey suggests that British teens might be tempted by suspect online methods to make money.

One in three teens (aged 12–18) admitted they would consider hacking or spying on people online if it meant they could make some fast cash. The survey exposes a lack of 'e-morals' at a time where kids are spending a significant amount of their time online.

The survey, which polled 1,000 teens and parents across the UK, revealed that kids don’t appear to have any sense of 'netiquette' when it comes to their online behaviour. It found that :

Over four out of ten teens have hacked into another person’s profile to read emails or looked at bank account details or logged onto another person’s social networking profile

Boys were almost twice as likely as girls to log into someone’s social networking site

Girls were up to three times more likely than boys to enter into someone’s online shop or bank accounts

It comes as little surprise that today's teens are parking their e-morals when one in three parents also admitted that they'd hacked into another person's online profile – be it their bank, email or social networking details.

So unless you conduct an appropriate Security & Privacy Awareness Training program for your new hires, and conduct an Annual refresher, don't presume that your employees share your Company’s traditional Principles over Customer Privacy & Software Copyright.