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Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk

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Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#21

Post by stackskipton »

scott_w wrote: post #16
MisterTea wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences. Either they learn from this misadventure or go on being a career criminal. All of this depends on their home lives.

This simply isn’t true. Yes, teenagers are morons by the standard of a well adjusted 30 year old, but they’re more than capable of understanding consequences for their actions. I hate to sound like my parents/grandparents but I absolutely knew that causing millions of pounds of damage and attempting to blackmail a major corporation could have huge negative consequences for people and myself at 17.

>I hate to sound like my parents/grandparents but I absolutely knew that causing millions of pounds of damage and attempting to blackmail a major corporation could have huge negative consequences for people and myself at 17.

Sure but not all do. If you look at murders, most of them are in 15-24 range in United States so them being 17, 19 and 20 tracks with what you expect.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#23

Post by devwastaken »

Cyber crime does not exist. Only deficient systems intentionally designed to be exploited exist. if you want your “cyber infrastructure” to not be attacked, dont make it vulnerable. All tech is artificial, not of nature.

Require software to be developed by licensed engineers. no more offshoring. no more importing of cheap labor. make tech corps pay instead of acruing mass wealth. Make the corps pay when the vulnerabilities they put in it are exploited.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#24

Post by nkrisc »

MisterTea wrote: post #13
gluten_guardian wrote: post #3

Crazy how young all these cyber criminals are. When I was their age, the peak of my criminal career was scoring booze by lying about my age. I wish they shared a little bit on what cyberattacks they were conducting.

Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences. Either they learn from this misadventure or go on being a career criminal. All of this depends on their home lives.

Not sure I'd agree. I'm sure most people reading here at HN had some computer-related incident as a teenager that made them realize there could be real consequences goofing around with a computer. And I would guess of those that did, most heeded that warning.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#25

Post by martinald »

scott_w wrote: post #16
MisterTea wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences. Either they learn from this misadventure or go on being a career criminal. All of this depends on their home lives.

This simply isn’t true. Yes, teenagers are morons by the standard of a well adjusted 30 year old, but they’re more than capable of understanding consequences for their actions. I hate to sound like my parents/grandparents but I absolutely knew that causing millions of pounds of damage and attempting to blackmail a major corporation could have huge negative consequences for people and myself at 17.

But it is very well understood and accepted that teenage - especially male prefrontal cortexes don't fully develop until mid 20s.

I'm sure they knew it could have major consequences, but when your risk taking pedal (limbic system) pedal is pushed to the floor all the time and your risk avoidance brakes (prefrontal cortex) is not fully developed that all goes out of the window, not unlike being intoxicated.

For example, I shudder to think how aggressively I drove when I first got a car - and I was very sensible compared to many people I knew! I hadn't actually drove for a couple of decades since I was an adolescent until very recently and I had to rent a car for something, but it was absolutely startling to me my frame of mind vs the last time I drove. All I can remember back then that driving was extremely fun and the more windy the road the better, this time all I could see was loads of giant risks.

Now if you compare this to the whole population, if you have a segment of it that are much more risk seeking either through genetics or environmental reasons, you can see the problem.

You can see this in all kinds of statistics at a societal level - crime, accidents, addiction risk. It is all much higher in these age ranges (and especially skewed towards males).

I don't think we should just dismiss good science like this "because I knew better". It has always been a very grave societal issue that has tended to be ignored or downplayed.

Obviously this doesn't give people carte blanche to do what they want - I'm not saying that. But hopefully societal views will catch up a bit with society and we can actually do something about it.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#26

Post by miohtama »

golan wrote: post #14

Related Reddit thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/s/LXb88TKC4M

In a proper capitalistic system, those who build low quality e-commerce services, including hackable ones, should go out of business and replace more competent companies. This includes buying services from bad suppliers.

This Reddit post hints that many shortcuts were taken, security not taken seriously when they should have, and now they reap what they sow.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#27

Post by miohtama »

gluten_guardian wrote: post #3

Crazy how young all these cyber criminals are. When I was their age, the peak of my criminal career was scoring booze by lying about my age. I wish they shared a little bit on what cyberattacks they were conducting.

How bad your system be if it can be hacked by a kid?

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#28

Post by scott_w »

nkrisc wrote: post #24
MisterTea wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences. Either they learn from this misadventure or go on being a career criminal. All of this depends on their home lives.

Not sure I'd agree. I'm sure most people reading here at HN had some computer-related incident as a teenager that made them realize there could be real consequences goofing around with a computer. And I would guess of those that did, most heeded that warning.

Yes, maybe these kids never learnt that lesson, for whatever reason. My point is that you can’t make this general claim:

> Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences.

Clearly, young people can. Maybe these young people couldn’t, but that’s a different claim.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#29

Post by scott_w »

stackskipton wrote: post #21
scott_w wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply isn’t true. Yes, teenagers are morons by the standard of a well adjusted 30 year old, but they’re more than capable of understanding consequences for their actions. I hate to sound like my parents/grandparents but I absolutely knew that causing millions of pounds of damage and attempting to blackmail a major corporation could have huge negative consequences for people and myself at 17.

>I hate to sound like my parents/grandparents but I absolutely knew that causing millions of pounds of damage and attempting to blackmail a major corporation could have huge negative consequences for people and myself at 17. Sure but not all do. If you look at murders, most of them are in 15-24 range in United States so them being 17, 19 and 20 tracks with what you expect.

And yet most 15-24 year olds are not committing murder, this sentence:

> Young people have little fear of repercussion as they cant really fathom the consequences.

is not true.

Re: Retail cyber attacks: NCA arrest four for attacks on M&S, Co-op and Harrods

#30

Post by tsm »

devwastaken wrote: post #23

Cyber crime does not exist. Only deficient systems intentionally designed to be exploited exist. if you want your “cyber infrastructure” to not be attacked, dont make it vulnerable. All tech is artificial, not of nature. Require software to be developed by licensed engineers. no more offshoring. no more importing of cheap labor. make tech corps pay instead of acruing mass wealth. Make the corps pay when the vulnerabi…

Theft does not exist. Only deficient windows intentionally designed to be breakable exist. if you want your "personal possessions" to not be taken, dont make them vulnerable.

Yes, the companies involved should take some responsibility for terrible security practice (though I'm sure they wish this had never happened!) but victim-blaming doesn't justify crime.

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