Education Week - October 9, 2019 - 15

Don't Dismiss Girls as Potential Hackers, Experts Say
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have the potential to get into trouble
online, they may want to focus on
not only the tech-savvy youths but
also the kids who are getting into
problematic behaviors at an early
age, Holt said.
School district chief technology
officers definitely grapple with the
issue of student hackers, said Amy
McLaughlin, the cybersecurity director for the Consortium for School
Networking. And it's not necessarily a new phenomenon, she added,
referencing "Ferris Bueller's Day
Off," a 1986 movie in which the title
character illegally enters his school's
computer system to change his attendance record.
"A lot of the time it's not about
being super clever, it's about being
opportunistic," she said.
So if a student happens to be a
teacher's aide during a free period,
he or she may have access to a password and username and be tempted
to use it-or be pressured by a peer to
do so, McLaughlin said. What's more,
there are times when a student might
have only intended to have a little fun
and break into a school's network
without realizing the breadth of what
they've gotten access to or what the
consequence might be for changing
or probing sensitive information.
"Students don't necessarily have all
of the decisionmaking capabilities of
an adult," she said. "That's why they
are still in school."

Boys vs. Girls
Indeed, low self-control is one
of the biggest predictive factors in
whether students are likely to turn
to cybercrime, Holt and his fellow
researchers found. That was true for
both boys and girls in the study.
Boys are more likely to become
hackers if they use drugs, spend a lot
of time watching television, or play a
ton of computer games. And girls are
more likely to turn to cybercrime if
they hang out with peers who shoplift or engage in other types of petty
theft. They're also more likely to become hackers if their friends like to
frighten or intimidate people "just
for fun."
That means, for girls, the pathway
to cybercrime is "much more about
their peer group," Holt said.
Boys are also more likely to hack
if they have their own computer or
smartphone. That kind of access to
technology doesn't matter as much
for girls, the study found. And in general, boys are more likely to turn to
cybercrime than their female counterparts.
"There may be something unique
about being a boy and having access
[to a computer] that isn't necessarily
there for girls," Holt said. That could
be because, back in the 1980s and
1990s, using a computer was considered "boy-centric" behavior, he said.
"We've seen a very small representation of women in the hacker
community, and in computer sci-

ence," said Holt. "It's been a slow sea
change."
McLaughlin agreed that educators
shouldn't dismiss the potential of
girls to engage in cybercrime. There
"tends to be a bias that hacking is
male activity, and it really isn't," she
said. Girls "are just as capable and
clever" and, in fact, more likely to
"fly under the wire" because of the
stereotype that they won't get into
trouble online.

Environmental Factors
Other risk factors are environmental, Holt's study found. Student hackers of both sexes are more likely to
have parents who are of higher socioeconomic status (meaning the family
owns their own vehicle). Or the kids
may have had additional involvement in piracy, for instance, obtaining movies online illegally.
Hackers may also be more likely
to live in small towns or rural areas
where there are fewer activities and
less structured time, the study suggests.
Of course, students with little selfcontrol might not be so great at cybercrimes that require a lot of time
and effort beyond just guessing a
password or finding one written on a
Post-It note.
"They may hack; they may not be
very good at it," Holt said. "If you're
a low-impulse-control kid, you're not
going to sit around and figure it out.
Kids with high self-control might
be more patient" and able to pull off
more complicated cybercrimes.
One example of a disruptive cybercrime that didn't take much technical know-how to pull off: A 15-yearold high school student in Riverside,
Calif., could face potential felony
charges after he tricked teachers
into handing over login details and
passwords and then used that information to change his and other students' grades, The Press-Enterprise
reported.
The student created an account
that made it seem as though his
emails were coming from a ranking
school official. In the messages, he
asked teachers for their usernames
and passwords for school computer
systems. Once the educators turned
over the information, the student
changed his own grades. He also
lowered others' grades and added
comments like "sleeps in class," the
paper reported. His peers noticed the
changes and alerted school officials.
So what can schools do to help mitigate the risks from teenage hackers?
Holt suggests educating all students
about the issue.
"Cyberawareness campaigns become important," he said. "Some of
these simple hacks may be targeting
their classmates."
What's more, there's "value in
teaching kids that cybercrime will
get you in trouble, and here's what
you can do to protect yourself."
That advice goes for school staff,
too, McLaughlin said. Chief technology officers should monitor their

systems for unusual behavior, so they
can respond quickly, she said. And
they need to train staff to secure their
passwords and lock their computers
when they aren't in use.
Then there's the big question of
what, exactly, to do with students
who are accused of hacking their
school's computers or other types of
cybercrimes, especially of the more
sophisticated variety. Cybersecurity
experts urge schools to try to redirect
these students to healthier and more
productive online activities at any
early age.
Danielle Santos, the program manager for the National Initiative for
Cybersecurity Education, suggested
that schools emphasize "the ethics

piece" of hacking early on in students' educational careers. And she
said schools should provide would-be
juvenile cybercriminals with safe outlets to "explore that area of technical
expertise that they already have and
want to develop."
Schools should connect students
who seem to have an interest in cybersecurity with mentors-in higher
education and the workforce-who
might be able to show them how they
could channel their interest into a career, she said.
In fact, experts who study the future of work and technology trends
expect that teenage hacking could
continue to be a problem in the future. How big a problem? A recent

report from the Cognizant Center
for the Future of Work suggests
that there will be a need for more
"juvenile-crime rehabilitation counselors," who try to persuade student
cyberhackers to put their technology
talent to more productive use, in the
not-too-distant future.
"For any student that is identified as engaging in those behaviors,
there's an opportunity to help that
student make different decisions,"
McLaughlin said. After all, cybersecurity professionals, with highpaying jobs, are trying to figure out
how hackers think so they can thwart
them. Students need to learn that
"they can leverage and use those
skills in a positive and legal way."

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