Via the BCC -
Some criminal gangs are paying students while they study to ensure they have a pool of tech-savvy workers to call on, says the report from McAfee.
Others are cashing in on the glamour of the hi-tech world to tempt youngsters into embarking on a life of crime.
McAfee said children as young as 14 years old were being targeted by some criminal gangs.
Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee and one of the authors of the Virtual Criminology report, said it aimed to explore the digital underground and how and where the criminal and hi-tech worlds meet.
"We wanted to understand a bit more about the motivation and how people end up on this career path," said Mr Day.
The most successful cyber crime gangs were based on partnerships between those with the criminals skills and contacts and those with the technical ability, said Mr Day.
"Traditional criminals have the ability to move funds and use all of the background they have," he said, "but they don't have the technical expertise."
As the number of criminal gangs looking to move into cyber crime expanded, it got harder to recruit skilled hackers, said Mr Day. This has led criminals to target university students all around the world.
"Some students are being sponsored through their IT degree," said Mr Day. Once qualified, the graduates go to work for the criminal gangs.
So this report was released in Europe last week, but won't be released in the US until early January. So can someone in Europe provide a link to the report somewhere? =)
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