How to train your hacker

The seven young men who attended the first weekend camp had gone further than many other hackers. These offenders had been arrested or visited by the NCA for committing cyber offences at home or school, which included putting servers offline and taking over restricted networks.

One member of the group said his accidental ‘hack’ of a primary school network, locking users out of the system, got him interested in computers. Having acquired a taste for tech, he went on to put the skills to a more malicious use as a way to escape from bullying at school.

By exploiting vulnerabilities, the hacker broke into networks. He then used psychological tricks, known as social engineering, to make people give up sensitive details.

“I manipulated people’s feelings and thoughts to my own advantage,” he said. “It was all attacks, attacks, attacks and nothing on the good side.”

The two-day residential camp reinforced messages about using technical skills responsibly and called on industry professionals who gave talks about jobs in cyber security.

Activities included learning about the different roles computer security staff take on including forensic analysis, network protection and mounting attacks on companies. The attendees also did coding challenges, took each other on in hacking games and learned about bug bounty schemes. These schemes could mean they would get paid for finding and reporting the loopholes they used to exploit for their own ends.

Richard Jones, Prevent manager at the NCA, said: “Cyber crime has become easier to commit with the proliferation of easy-to-access tools, tutorials and online forums to share idea.

“Even the most basic forms of cyber crime can have huge impacts and the NCA and police will arrest and prosecute offenders, which can be devastating to their future.

“That means there is great value in reaching young people before they become involved in cyber crime, and even those already on the fringes of criminality - when their skills can still be a force for good.”