By adopting such Nineteenth-Century criminal grooming methods to the online world of the Twenty-First Century, today’s threat actors are effectively criminalizing an entire generation not to pick pockets but to rifle fat online crypto wallets instead. When the media reports that a nineteen-year-old hacker has been arrested at his parent’s house for a major hack, such as the one that recently occurred at Transport for London (TfL), the sinister cybercriminals who may have orchestrated the cyber-attack doubtless breathe a sigh of relief.

“What the police should be asking in a case like is who has been grooming the teenage hacker and for how many years?” says Fraser Hay, CEO and co-founder of one-year-old UK start-up The Hacking Games, whose aim is to use online gaming, TV and other media to encourage teenagers away from a life of online crime and towards careers in ethical hacking.