“You can be an ethical hacker, not a criminal”: The initiative that guides young gamers towards cybersecurity | From play to goal

Video games have come a long way since they gained widespread popularity in the 1970s – and the numbers of people playing them have skyrocketed. Today, it is estimated that there are about 3 billion gamers worldwide, including more than 90% of Generation Z, who spend an average of more than 12 hours per week gaming. Modern gaming epics are full of imagination and invention, drawing young people into bustling, colorful, and often seemingly endless worlds that they can shape and develop for themselves.

It’s this burgeoning creative skill set that criminals have begun to target – hiding within popular online games to discover children and teens who might make prolific hackers.

The costs and consequences of cybercrime are wide-ranging: the cost of cybercrime globally is expected to reach $12 trillion in 2025, an enterprise in which young people are engaging at high rates. Recent research found that 69% of young Europeans reported having committed at least one form of cybercrime, harm or risk taking online, while in the UK, the National Crime Agency last released figures in 2015 showing the average age of suspects and arrests for cybercrime is 17 – much younger compared to some other crimes, such as drug offences, which is 37.

“If you get caught at 17, you’re going to be turned into a weapon at about 11,” says Fergus Hay, co-founder and CEO of The Hacking Games, an organization that seeks to help young people find legitimate outlets for their programming talents. “This doesn’t happen overnight – the entry point is games, which act as a living laboratory to grow skill sets. These young people modify and hack games to find loopholes.”

He adds that social media platforms will provide the guidance and tools needed to start hacking, while also offering an aspirational lifestyle and the opportunity to be part of a community.

This comes as the UK faces an increasing number of serious cyber attacks. The National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) recently revealed a record rise in major cyber attacks in the 12 months to August 2025, with 204 of them described by GCHQ as “of national significance” – up from 89 the previous year.

To help address this threat, Hay launched The Hacking Games, bringing together cybersecurity expert John Madeleine with a shared vision to “create a generation of ethical hackers to make the world safer.”

“This is a generation of hackers who are natural born: they either become a burden on society or they become an asset,” says Madeleine. “If you can reach them, you can inspire them to become ethical hackers, not criminal hackers.”

Hacking Games recently launched its HAPTAI platform, which helps build Hacking Aptitude profiles of young people by analyzing a candidate’s performance in popular game titles and matching them with their psychographic profile. It then pairs candidates with roles and jobs in which they will excel and with teams in which they will thrive.

It is estimated that the average annual global cost of cybercrime will reach $23 trillion by 2027, with threats coming from government actors and organized groups around the world. It is these organized groups that find young people and ultimately push them into criminal activity.

For children and young people who are contacted by these “cyber scammers”, there is big money to be made. What starts with paying in virtual currencies to use in their favorite video games, sometimes ends up with tens of thousands of real pounds and dollars in the bank – or the cryptocurrency equivalent.

“When they see a talent showing real experience hacking and modding games, they’ll approach them, posing as another kid, and ask, ‘What would you do for some cryptocurrency?'” Hay says. “Many of them are really smart, often neurodivergent, and test and experiment with the limits of creativity through games. They don’t have a criminal mindset by nature.”

The sheer scale of operational disruption and financial losses has been evident in the UK in the past year. Major companies have reported losses in the millions due to the hack, including Co-op, which was targeted in a cyberattack earlier this year that led to the arrest of four people as part of an ongoing National Crime Agency investigation.

The social issue behind the crime

As a member-owned and socially conscious brand, the Co-op’s drive to improve society and build better communities has led to them partnering with The Hacking Games to help prevent future attacks and create opportunities for young people who may be lured into criminality.

“When they had a hack, the cooperative wanted to find out who was the problem and what the problem was – and when they discovered that there were underlying social problems, they realized they had a responsibility, not only in terms of IT that they could fix, but also dealing with the real root causes among young people and working with us to solve them,” explains Madeleine.

The cooperative has a long history of community activism that addresses issues such as social mobility and loneliness. Co-op and The Hacking Games will work together to launch pilot schemes across Co-op Academies Trust schools in the north of England. The Co-op Academies Trust, sponsored by Co-op Group, consists of a network of 38 academies reaching 20,000 students, including primary, secondary, private schools and a college, which will redirect would-be hackers into legitimate career paths.

In this pilot, children from across the trust will be selected based on their interests in gaming and technology. Through interactive and creative sessions, they will explore how ethical hacking works and gain insight into its vital role in cybersecurity. The program will also include a strong focus on vocational education, with trusted industry partners showcasing the exciting opportunities that await talented young people in this fast-growing field.

“Students in our academies are becoming more and more interested in tech roles, but of course we have little data on what is happening at home when it comes to gaming and whether this has spilled over into hacking,” says Joe Sykes, careers director at the Co-op Academies Trust. “Our role as educators is to confront challenges head-on, so this program will certainly give our students who are considering exploring these areas a new perspective and insight.”

The path to a legitimate career

While young gamer activities may be as simple as modifying an in-game experience without permission, they may also include creating cheat codes and selling them to other players on the dark web.

For example, a group of parents known to The Hacking Games only discovered their child was involved when, upon landing $400,000 (£298,000) in the digital wallet, the child asked if they had to pay taxes.

“If you are a young person wondering whether further education is relevant, then you [might] “I conclude that, actually, ‘I can make a lot of money with just a few keystrokes,’” says Madelin. “More and more people are realizing that.”

The answer, according to Hay and Madeleine, is to reach these young people before they go too far, identify their skill set, discover their potential, and map that into an educational framework that can, in time, fill cybersecurity skills shortages both in the UK and around the world – something Hay describes as a “generational opportunity”.

“Some of these young people have been marginalized at school or worse—victims and bullies,” he says. “They hate bad guys, they hate bullies, and they like to take them down. And if you understand these motivations, you can help set them in motion.”

Find out more