26% of British kids have tried hacking
A survey of kids online in Great Britain finds that fully a quarter of them have tried to hack Web sites or the accounts of their friends, either email accounts or social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Even though they thought that it was the wrong thing to do, and probably even illegal, over a quarter of British kids had tried to get into the accounts of their friends and parents or even tried to hack shopping sites online. The kids, mainly pre-teens and teens, were most often after the accounts of their friends or their parents because they felt they could probably guess the passwords of their accounts. The most popular targets were the accounts of their friends on Facebook, followed by the email accounts of their friends and parents. At the same time, 78 percent of those surveyed thought that it was wrong to try to hack accounts, and 53 percent thought that doing so was illegal, according to a CNN story.
Stuart Hyde, who is deputy chief constable of the Cumbria Police and the president of the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace, said, “What this survey starkly highlights is that hacking into personal online accounts, whether e-mail or Facebook, can be child’s play if users do not protect their own passwords. It illustrates the importance of keeping your passwords strong, secure, and changing them regularly.” That is not news, of course, but the fact that so many people still make it so easy to get into their accounts probably is.
It seems that those kids that have tried hacking are willing to do it pretty much from anywhere that there is a computer. The most popular place from which to try to hack into an account is the kid’s own bedroom. However, they also worked on their hacking skills from internet cafes and computer labs at school. Although most said that they were just doing it for fun, 21 percent said they intended to cause disruption and 20 percent thought they could generate an income from hacking. Who would have thought we were raising an entire generation primarily made up of hackers?
Related Posts:
March 21st, 2010
I tried hacking once…it needed more salt…
March 23rd, 2010
ive spent the past 2 years learning hacking in my free time ( i started in 11th grade). ive learned quite a bit. but the most important tool is social engineering… ;)