17-Year-Old Admits to TalkTalk Hacking

TalkTalk was fined a record amount for cyber security failings that enabled customers’ data to be breached without much difficulty.

A teenager has confessed to seven different hacking offences, all linked to a cyber attack on the telecommunications company.

Chris Brown, who is mitigating, stated:

“You’re dealing with someone who at the time was just 16 years old, who created a number of personas online. Personas that talked about his abilities as a hacker.”

Brown said the boy was challenged by other members of the online community in order to prove that he could do what he claimed. He added:

“The thrill was in the chase. It was not in damaging their website or causing loss to them. It was playing.”

The teenager, whose name has been protected by law, was arrested November 2015 in Norwich for failing to adhere to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 after Metropolitan Police’s Cyber Crime Unit conducted an investigation.

The teen conceded to seven charges at Norwich Youth Court and will be given his sentence on the December 13th.

TalkTalk fell victim to a website attack that it termed as “significant and sustained” on the 21st October 2015.

With cyber criminals seemingly getting younger, it is a scary future for businesses that hold important data regarding both customers and the company itself. This is why it is increasingly important to open up IT security jobs to those with the kind of talent capable of fending off and dealing with such attacks. Just one breach can, as has been proved, be devastating to the modern business.