193. Mic Drop: For researcher Alison Nixon, young cybercriminals are ‘objectively interesting’

Summary

Podcast Summary: Click Here – Episode 193: Mic Drop: For Researcher Alison Nixon, Young Cybercriminals are ‘Objectively Interesting’

Release Date: December 20, 2024
Host: Dena Templewest
Guest: Allison Nixon
Duration: Approximately 14 minutes

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Introduction to Young Cybercriminals

In Episode 193 of Click Here, host Dena Templewest engages in a compelling conversation with cybersecurity expert Allison Nixon. The discussion centers on the intriguing phenomenon of young individuals engaging in cybercrime, delving into their motivations, methods, and the societal implications of their actions.

Notable Quote:

“It seems deja vu all over again. Many of these cybercriminals are young kids, possibly unable to a group of teenagers hacking casinos.” – Dena Templewest [00:24]

Transition from Terrorism to Cybersecurity

Dena Templewest shares her professional journey from reporting on terrorism to focusing on cybersecurity. Her background in studying radicalization among youth provides a unique lens through which she views the rise of young cybercriminals.

Notable Quote:

“Before I started covering cybersecurity, I spent years reporting on one of the marquee stories of the decade, terrorism.” – Dena Templewest [00:24]

Allison Nixon’s Expertise in Young Cybercriminals

Allison Nixon, a specialist in tracking young offenders within cybercriminal gangs, discusses her role at Unit 221B, a cybersecurity firm. She emphasizes her focus on teenagers and individuals in their early twenties who engage in sophisticated hacking activities.

Notable Quote:

“I kind of fell into it, really, so.” – Allison Nixon [05:01]

The Allure of Cybercrime for Youth

Nixon explains that the virtual nature of cybercrime makes it particularly alluring to young individuals. The lack of visible consequences and the perception of activities like hacking as pranks rather than felonies contribute to their engagement in such behavior.

Notable Quote:

“Kids who aren't old enough to drink are pulling off epic hacks.” – Dena Templewest [00:24]

Sim Swapping: A Common Cybercrime Technique

The conversation delves into the specifics of sim swapping, a technique where cybercriminals take control of a victim’s phone number to gain access to various online accounts. Nixon has been tracking teenage involvement in these schemes, highlighting their increasing sophistication and impact.

Notable Quote:

“They basically sweet talk some employee at a telephone company to switch the contents of someone's phone to a SIM card they control.” – Allison Nixon [04:22]

Parallels Between Cybercriminal Gangs and Traditional Street Gangs

Tim Harford, mentioned in the discussion, draws parallels between online gangs and traditional street gangs. Both structures exhibit similar patterns of behavior, loyalty, and challenges in rehabilitation, making it difficult for individuals to extricate themselves once involved.

Notable Quote:

“A lot of these online gangs are so reminiscent of old school street gangs. It's really uncanny.” – Tim Harford [01:35]

Escalation and Lack of Consequences in the Digital Realm

Harford and Nixon discuss how the online environment lacks the traditional feedback loops that deter youth from escalating their criminal behavior. Without immediate and tangible consequences, young cybercriminals continue to push boundaries without restraint.

Notable Quote:

“The problem is with the Internet is the environment will not push back. And so when you do something, there's no consequences.” – Tim Harford [07:55]

Challenges in Rehabilitation and Reintegration

The episode highlights the significant obstacles in rehabilitating young cybercriminals. The pervasive nature of the internet makes it challenging to distance individuals from their online affiliations, and existing rehabilitation programs are insufficient in addressing the unique aspects of cybercrime.

Notable Quote:

“There needs to be some kind of positive program that they can get enrolled into that will help them get out of this world and reintegrate with society.” – Tim Harford [13:16]

The Need for Comprehensive Research and Investment

Nixon and Harford underscore the necessity for more research into effective rehabilitation strategies. Governments and institutions must invest time and resources into developing programs that not only prevent youth from engaging in cybercrime but also support their transition back into productive societal roles.

Notable Quote:

“There needs to be more research into what's working or not to help design effective rehabilitation programs.” – Dena Templewest [12:26]

Conclusion: The Path Forward

Dena Templewest wraps up the discussion by emphasizing the critical need for a multifaceted approach to address young cybercriminals. This includes better information collection, targeted rehabilitation programs, and societal support systems to guide youth away from the pitfalls of cybercrime.

Closing Quote:

“We need to put them someplace where victims can be protected, where perpetrators are also protected from fellow gang members and also themselves.” – Tim Harford [13:16]

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Credits:
Click Here’s Mic Drop episode 193 was written and produced by Sean Powers and Dena Templewest, with editing by Karen Duffett. For more insightful discussions on cybersecurity and the digital world, subscribe to Click Here and stay informed with the latest episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Additional Resources:
For a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, listeners are encouraged to sign up for the Cyber Daily by Recorded Future News, which aggregates crucial cyber stories from around the globe.

Transcript

[Dena Templewest]

From Recorded Future News and prx, this is Click Here.

[Allison Nixon]

I'm Dena templewest and this is Click Here's Mic Drop.

[Dena Templewest]

Before I started covering cybersecurity, I spent years reporting on one of the marquee stories of the decade, terrorism. And I eventually became a bit of an expert in this very niche thing. The way young men radicalize. I even wrote a book about it. Has been asking why terrorism runs in families. Young Moroccans who have traveled to Syria to join isis. They say their client was being fed a steady diet of far right content. Since then, I've turned my attention away from terrorism and towards cyber. And as Yogi Berra might say it, it seems deja vu all over again. Many of these cybercriminals are young kids, possibly unable to a group of teenagers hacking casinos. Kids who aren't old enough to drink are pulling off epic hacks. And more often than not, they move from the world of online gaming to online crime. Like the 15 year old who installed a backdoor in US military servers. Or the gang of teenagers who swindled crypto investor Michael Turpin out of $24 million worth of crypto.

[Tim Harford]

A lot of these online gangs are so reminiscent of old school street gangs. It's really uncanny.

[Dena Templewest]

From recorded future news, I'm Dena Templest and this is Click Here's Mic Drop, an extended cut of an interview we think you'd like to hear more of. And today we're returning to a conversation I had over the summer with Allison Nixon. She's an expert in those cyber criminal gangs that use a very effective hacking technique called sim swapping.

[Tim Harford]

When you look at people that do engage in the most extreme acts, if you look at their history, you can see this pattern of escalation and escalation and escalation until it gets so extreme that they've done something they can't take back.

[Dena Templewest]

With us.

[Sean Powers]

Do nice guys really finish last? I'm Tim Harford, host of the Cautionary Tales podcast and I'm exploring that very question. Join me for my new mini series on the art of fairness. From New York to Tahiti, we'll examine villains undone by their villainy, monstrous self devouring egos, and accounts of the extraordinary power of decency. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you to podcasts.

[Dena Templewest]

I'm Dena Temple Roast and this is.

[Allison Nixon]

Click Here's Mic Drop.

[Tim Harford]

Wait, so what do you think my room looks like?

[Allison Nixon]

Oh, let's see. Pretty bed spread.

[Dena Templewest]

Allison Nixon has this specialty. She's Steeped in the world of young offenders, she studies them for unit 221B, the cybersecurity company she works for. And when we met up over Zoom, I think I was half expecting to see some crazy evidence board on her wall.

[Allison Nixon]

Yeah, and pieces of string, putting them together like A Beautiful Mind.

[Tim Harford]

And X's over their faces for the ones that are already done.

[Allison Nixon]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you take them down, Allison doesn't.

[Dena Templewest]

Actually map out her investigations that way. Instead, she watches them play out online. And she's particularly focused on hackers in their teens and early twenties.

[Allison Nixon]

Would it be right to say you sort of, I don't know, specialize in young cybercriminals?

[Tim Harford]

I mean, I guess you could put it that way.

[Dena Templewest]

Part of Alison's interest lies in the fact that young hackers are creative. Often they're behind some of the most innovative attacks.

[Tim Harford]

When I look at what these guys are doing, like, objectively, it's objectively interesting. They're getting into things that shouldn't be possible, and yet they're doing it successfully.

[Dena Templewest]

Consider the sim swapper. We talked about them in our episode on Tuesday, and their con is simple. They basically sweet talk some employee at a telephone company to switch the contents of someone's phone to a SIM card they control, and that gives them entree into an untold number of other things. Alison has been tracking teenage cybercriminals like this for years.

[Allison Nixon]

And would it be right to say you sort of specialize in young cybercriminals?

[Tim Harford]

I mean, I guess you could put it that way. I kind of fell into it, really, so.

[Allison Nixon]

So talk to me about how that happened.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, so I've. I've always had this fascination with different kinds of third actor groups that use novel attacks and have interesting ways of getting into things. And over the years, I've realized that there's this corner of the Internet where a disproportionate amount of interesting things happens. They're breaking trust models, they're getting into things that shouldn't be possible, and yet they're doing it successfully.

[Dena Templewest]

For the rest of the industry at large, though, something like sim swapping seemed kind of niche. It didn't get much attention until about 2018, when, oh, the price of cryptocurrency went way up.

[Allison Nixon]

And that made what, just sim swapping and trying to steal crypto through sim swapping much more attractive.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, basically, the rise in the price of Bitcoin made all of these methods profitable, whereas previously, sim swap has always been possible. And I had seen it in years past used for essentially frivolous purposes in order to do targeted harassment or stuff like that. But at some point in 2017 and 2018, these guys realized that they could use the exact same techniques to make millions of dollars. So they did. And that has sparked essentially a revolution in this corner of the Internet where they've realized, hey, we don't have to waste these techniques on harassing kids in video games. We can use it to become rich. So I'm kind of in that weird position now where I'm like, I told you so.

[Allison Nixon]

That's a good position, isn't it?

[Tim Harford]

I mean, I guess, but it would have been nice if they listened before.

[Dena Templewest]

Kids can fall into cybercrime for a lot of the same reasons. They fall into other misguided pursuits, though in a way, cyber is even more alluring because it's virtual. You can't see the victims, so your conscience doesn't nag at you as much. And for kids who are already spending most of their time online, breaking into gaming accounts and stealing usernames or crypto doesn't feel exactly real. It seems more prank than felony. All your friends are doing it. And who is really getting hurt?

[Tim Harford]

Teenagers engage in boundary pushing. That is normal developmental process. And normally the environment starts to push back at a certain point, and kids learn that, hey, you shouldn't do this. There's going to be consequences. And this feedback loop of learning is how teenagers become adults.

[Dena Templewest]

The trouble, Alison says, is online, there isn't much of a feedback loop.

[Tim Harford]

The problem is with the Internet is the environment will not push back. And so when you do something, there's no consequences. And then you do it more extreme, and there's no consequences, not even really tiny consequences. So as a result, they don't receive that very important learning that teenagers normally in human history have gotten.

[Dena Templewest]

And in a world without consequences, well, it's hard for young people to put on the brakes.

[Tim Harford]

You have this teenage street gang culture where certain kinds of behaviors are normalized, which is very different from how the average person would deal with something like, for example, there's a lot of this beefing and harassment and, like, feuding back and forth. And when people spend their teenage years, their formative years steeped in this reality, they think this is how the world works.

[Allison Nixon]

This reminds me so much of just kids and radicalizing just sort of generally that you've made me think there are a lot of parallels between people who are in the sim swapping world and actually people who get attracted to groups like ISIS or Even white supremacists, right. So it's somebody who doesn't feel like they have a community, so they go and find one. And for radicalized kids who were joining isis, before they knew it, they were on ISIS websites and talking to people and saying, oh, I can handle it, but they couldn't. And this seems like the same thing of what's going on with these sim swapping young. I mean, they're all the same, around the same age. They're all kind of, many of them on the fringes of society. I mean, it's the same brute.

[Karen Duffett]

True.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. There's so many parallels. And I mean, a lot of these people, when they fall down this rabbit hole, they also start to disconnect from people in real life. They disconnect from any kind of stabilizing force in their life to, you know, keep them anchored to what's normal, what's like, how do you treat people? And so when they get deeper and deeper into these rabbit holes, they engage in extreme behavior that alienates them from normal society until it gets so extreme that they've done something they can't take back. They either ruin their life or other people's lives.

[Dena Templewest]

The trouble isn't just that young people don't know how they fit into general society. Once they radicalize or start committing crimes, they don't have the tools they need to turn their lives around and make it stop. Not unlike being in a gang or a terrorist group. It just isn't that easy for them to step away from this life.

[Tim Harford]

This is something that a lot of people just seem to assume is like flipping a switch, like, oh, hey, I've decided I'm not going to do cybercrime anymore. That's not the reality. There's a lot of pitfalls along the way.

[Allison Nixon]

Are there red flags, like if they start hanging out with the same people again and that sort of thing, is that sort of an indication that they're on a risky path?

[Tim Harford]

That's one of the complexities that comes with the whole issue of rehabilitation. Because a lot of these online gangs are so reminiscent of old school street gangs. It's really uncanny. Like when you talk to people that used to be gang bangers, like old school pre Internet gang bangers, and they talk about their experience of trying to leave the gang and how difficult it is to leave the gang and how members of the gang will try to pull you back in. In online gangs, we see a lot of parallels to that. We see members of the old gangs reach out to them and try to Drag them back in. Sometimes there'll be a friendly outreach. Sometimes it'll be a hostile outreach. They'll get targeted, they'll get harassed. And the problem is, is that you can't move to another town to get away from them. You can't move anywhere. The Internet is everywhere.

[Allison Nixon]

This is not that different than radicalization either. If you hang around with the same people who radicalized you to go and join isis, you fall into the old patterns.

[Tim Harford]

Yes. And actually that reminds me of some really interesting conversations I had. So some of the people that in the past worked on ISIS recruitment stuff, they are now also looking at these online gangs and figuring out, hey, how can we deprogram these kids who were essentially radicalized by this domestic grassroots, chaotic crime culture?

[Dena Templewest]

The only problem is these lessons are only useful if they're actually applied. Alison says there needs to be more research into what's working or not to help design effective rehabilitation programs.

[Tim Harford]

There needs to be better information collection on, you know, figuring out how to categorize these people, figuring out what kind of behaviors are a risk factor and what are not, and then also following up with these people years on down the road, figure out, hey, do you have a job right now? What kind of job do you have? Have you gotten any other criminal charges? Do you have people in your life that can vouch for you to say that you've cleaned up your life? Do you have relationships that you can maintain in the long term?

[Dena Templewest]

But this kind of research and these programs require a lot of time and money.

[Tim Harford]

So this is something that governments need to invest in is like, you know, I'm okay with not putting them in prison, but when we let them out, we need to put them someplace where victims can be protected, where perpetrators are also protected from fellow gang members and also themselves. There needs to be some kind of positive program that they can get enrolled into that will help them get out of this world and reintegrate with society and live some kind of productive life that doesn't get wrapped up in all this Internet cybercrime drama. And that last piece is what we're missing, and that's what we need.

[Dena Templewest]

From recorded future news, this has been Click Here's Mic Drop. It was written and produced by Sean Powers and me, Dina Templreston, and it was edited by Karen Duffett. We'll be back on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

[Karen Duffett]

If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily. From Recorded future News. It serves up today's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication the Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to the Record Media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.