Video games have come a long way since they gained widespread popularity in the 1970s – and the numbers of people playing them have rocketed. Today, it is estimated that there are about 3 billion gamers worldwide, including more than 90% of gen Z, who spend on average more than 12 hours a week gaming. Modern gaming epics are packed with imagination and invention, drawing young people into noisy, colourful, and often seemingly infinite worlds that they can shape and develop themselves.
It’s this blossoming creative skill set that criminals have begun to target – hiding within popular online games to spot children and teenagers who’d make prolific hackers.
The costs and consequences of cybercrime are extensive: it is estimated that the cost of cybercrime globally will reach $12tn in 2025, and it is an enterprise in which young people are engaged at high rates. Recent research has found that 69% of European youth self-report to have committed at least one form of cybercrime or online harm or risk taking, while in the UK the National Crime Agency last released figures in 2015 showing that the average age of suspects and arrests for cybercrime is 17 – substantially younger compared with some other crimes, such as drug offences, which is 37.
“If you’re being arrested at 17, you’re being weaponised at around 11,” says Fergus Hay, co-founder and chief executive of The Hacking Games, an organisation that seeks to help young people find legitimate outlets for their coding talents. “It’s not happening overnight – and the entry point is gaming, which acts as a live laboratory for skill set development. These young people are modifying and hacking games to find the loopholes.”
Social media platforms will provide the instructions and tools to begin hacking, while also presenting a lifestyle to aspire to and the chance to be a part of a community, he adds.
This comes as the UK is facing an increasing number of serious cyber-attacks. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) recently revealed a record rise in major cyber-attacks in the 12 months to August 2025, with 204 described by GCHQ as “nationally significant” – up from 89 in the previous year.
To help tackle this threat, Hay launched The Hacking Games, bringing onboard cybersecurity expert John Madelin with a shared vision to “create a generation of ethical hackers to make the world safer”.
“This is a generation of natural born hackers: they’re either going to be a liability to society or they’re going to be an asset. If you can get to them, you can inspire them to be an ethical hacker, not a criminal hacker,” says Madelin.
The Hacking Games has recently launched its HAPTAI platform, which helps to build Hacking Aptitude Profiles for young people by analysing a candidate’s performance on popular gaming titles and matching it to their psychometric profile. It then pairs candidates with roles and jobs they’ll excel at and with teams they’ll flourish in.
It is estimated that the average annual global cost of cybercrime will be as high as $23tn by 2027, with threats coming from state actors and organised groups around the world. It is these organised groups that find and ultimately groom young people into criminal activity.
For children and young people approached by these “cyber Fagins”, there’s big money to be made. What starts with being paid in virtual currencies to be used in their favourite video games, sometimes ends in tens of thousands of real pounds and dollars in the bank – or the equivalent in cryptocurrency.
“When they see a talent showing real expertise in hacking and modding the games, they will approach them, masquerading as another kid, and ask: ‘What would you do for some crypto?’” says Hay. “Many are really bright, often neurodivergent, testing and experimenting on the edges of creativity through gaming. They’re not naturally criminally minded.”
The sheer scale of the problem for operational disruption and financial loss has been clear in the UK in the past year. Major companies have reported millions in losses due to hacking – including Co-op, which was targeted in a cyber-attack earlier this year that led to four arrests as part of an ongoing National Crime Agency investigation.
The social issue behind the crime
As a member-owned, socially conscious brand, Co-op’s drive to improve society and build better communities led it to partner with The Hacking Games to help prevent future attacks and create opportunities for young people who may otherwise be lured into criminality.
“When they got hacked,” Madelin explains, “Co-op wanted to know who and what was the problem – when they found out there were underlying social issues, they knew they had a responsibility, not just for the IT they could fix, but to get to grips with the real root causes among young people and work with us to solve them.”
Co-op has a long history in community activism addressing issues such as social mobility and loneliness. Together Co-op and The Hacking Games will work to initiate pilot schemes across Co-op Academies Trust schools in the north of England. Co-op Academies Trust, sponsored by Co-op Group, consists of a network of 38 academies reaching 20,000 students, including primary, secondary, special schools, and a college, which will work to redirect potential 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 engaging and creative sessions, they will explore how ethical hacking works and gain insight into its vital role in cybersecurity. The programme will also include a strong focus on careers education, with trusted industry partners showcasing the exciting opportunities that await talented young people in this rapidly growing field.
“Students in our academies are becoming more and more interested in tech roles, but of course we have little data on what goes on at home when it comes to gaming and whether this has extended to hacking,” says Jo Sykes, director of careers at Co-op Academies Trust. “It is our role as educators to tackle challenges head on, so this programme will certainly give our students who are considering exploring these areas, a new perspective and insight.”
A path to a legitimate career
While a young gamer’s activities could be as simple as modifying an in-game experience without permission, it might also include creating cheat codes and selling these to other players on the dark web.
For example, one set of parents known to The Hacking Games only found out their child was involved when, on reaching $400,000 (£298,000) in a digital wallet, the child asked whether they needed to pay tax.
“If you’re young and wondering whether further education is relevant, you [might] work out that, actually, ‘I can make serious money with just a few keystrokes,’” says Madelin. “More and more are recognising that.”
The answer, according to Hay and Madelin, is to reach these young people before they go too far, identify their skill set, spot their potential, and map this to an education framework that could, in time, fill the cybersecurity skills shortage both in the UK and worldwide – something that Hay describes as a “generational opportunity”.
“Some of these young people were marginalised at school or worse – victimised and bullied. They hate the bad guys, they hate the bullies, and they love to take them down. If you understand those motivations, you can help move them,” he says.
