Ctrl + Alt + Chaos

How Teenage Hackers Hijack the Internet

An immersive, pulse-pounding exposé on the global rise of teenage hackers, offering an insider's portrait of the dark net and the key players who are disrupting corporations, government institutions and our everyday lives—for fans of Bad Blood and Uncanny Valley

Julius Kivimaki, aka Zeekill, is arguably the most hated hacker in history. In one of the world’s cruelest cyberattacks, he blackmailed 30,000 psychotherapy patients with their stolen notes. Yet while the breach was singularly inhumane, Kivimaki’s rise—from twelve-year-old hacking nuisance to Most Wanted criminal—is symptomatic of a larger trend. His story gives us vital insights into how hackers, many of whom are teenagers, find their feet and become dangerous criminals.

In this gripping true crime narrative, cybersecurity correspondent Joe Tidy reveals that there is one area of the criminal underworld that is being underestimated at our peril—the dark digital underbelly where teenage boys are reshaping cybersecurity, cryptocurrency and organized crime under the noses of their parents.

Propulsive, urgent and scrupulously reported, Ctrl + Alt + Chaos tracks the rise and fall of global hacking groups to ask the question: How can we stop the cycle of teenage boys hijacking life online?