Identity Theft News

Survey: Two-thirds of teens have tried hacking

Monday, May 18, 2009

Web-savvy young people spend an average of 18.5 hours online, mostly engaged in leisure activities such as watching web videos or chatting with friends. But 67 percent of teens say they have tried to hack their friends' social network or IM accounts, a survey has found.
The survey of 4,000 teens aged 15-18, conducted by a major web security firm, also found that 17 percent of this age group claim to have advanced technical knowledge and are able to find hacking tools on the web.

Of those who said they had access to hacking tools, 30 percent claim to have used them on at least one occasion. When asked why, 86 percent said that "curiosity" had led them to investigate these public tools, the security firm said.

Parents of the teens surveyed seemed to have no idea that their children could be engaged in illegal activity - none of them expressed among their main concerns the risk that their children could be involved in illicit activities on the internet.

The firm said those teens who are drawn into hacking out of curiosity may end up discovering the financial potential of this activity and become "the next generation of cybercriminals."
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