I was a cybercriminal and cheated THOUSANDS of victims – how to protect YOUR kids online

An ex-cybercriminal has warned of the dangers children face online after becoming entangled in a scam at the age of 12.

The man in his 20s, referred to only as “Harry,” has expressed remorse for past transgressions as he misled thousands of computer gamers in his younger days.

These harmful scams began at a time when Harry was eager to earn pocket money, with no way to get a job himself.

But as children become increasingly fixated on the virtual world, he says protection is essential to ensure they are protected from shady practices.

“As a child, I didn’t feel it at all. I would get big scam and take my friends to McDonald’s and pay for it. Things like that,” Harry told MailOnline.

“But after it was all over, it really dawned on me that it was other kids I had scammed. I started thinking about how it was received from their side.

“It’s probably a little harder to do what I did now, but it’s pretty easy. That is a huge risk for children. You can just download DarkComet RATS (Remote Access Trojan Horses) and you’re good to go.’

Harry’s first scam happened out of anger when a player of the first-person shooter game, Counter-Strike (CS:GO), cheated on him.

This player stole a virtual weapon known as Huntsman Knife Crimson Web, which is currently selling for over £1,000 ($1,278) on trading sites such as CSGOSkins.gg.

But this is by no means the most expensive, with other in-game weapons selling for £19,500 ($25,000) in some cases.

These are obtained via a lucky dip feature, where players spend £5 ($6.39) on ‘cases’ that might have one in them.

“Someone sent me a message saying, ‘I’ll buy your knife and I’ll send you money for it,'” Harry continued.

“After a bit of convincing I sent them the knife and of course they didn’t send me any money.

“Out of anger, I simply repeated what the man did to me with someone else. I didn’t have much success at first, but enough to keep me interested. The more time I spent on it, the more convincing I made my scam.”

Harry believes he scammed more than 100 people over the course of his early teens, £700 ($895) of which was the most he ever made.

Screenshots of fake PayPal transactions and encouraging friends to vouch for its trustworthiness made this very easy at first.

He said, “There was a bit of a trading scene at the time. So you could join a trading server and there would be people searching for items, trading things – things like that.

“I looked at profiles of people who were trusted and respected there and made my profile look familiar and respectable.

“I remember one time I went to a friend’s and we wanted to play GTA (Grand Theft Auto) and he didn’t have it and he said “ah, can you scam someone quick so we can buy it” – so I did. ‘

During his early teens, Harry also dabbled in hacking forums to play with viruses.

He was completely unaware of the seriousness of his actions and claims it was all way too easy.

“I would spend a lot of time hacking forums. I played with viruses. It was like you didn’t need to have much technical knowledge at all. Using it is extremely simple. Anyone can use it – no problem,’ Harry continued.

“I once found a virus that couldn’t be detected by anti-virus programs and then disguised it as nudes. So I just googled “sexchat” and typed in a suggestive name that would indicate I’m female.

“You could say ‘do you want to see a picture of me’ – of course they want to see a picture of you. You can send a photo that isn’t really a photo – they rotate it – and then you can look at their screen and play around.’

Based on his experience, Harry encourages parents to ensure their children’s devices are equipped with adequate anti-virus software and ad blockers.

“Parents can keep an eye on all of this and make sure the correct antivirus is installed on the PC. And also an ad blocker, as malvertising is huge right now,” he said.

“There is a huge boom in in-game item prices. They recently reached a record number of new players and the release of CS2 is just around the corner – which will attract more kids.

Things like TikTok videos saying “join this group of trusted merchants”, “here’s how to sell these items” will appear. It’s too easy to tie people up.’

While TikTok is one of many platforms that don’t tolerate fraud and scams, Jake Moore, a Global Security Advisor at ESET, claims that this content persists.

He warns that this can only make perpetrators younger.

“Online forums are full of illegal manuals, and as the visitors to these websites get younger, so do those who commit these crimes,” Moore said.

“These relatively simple and straightforward step-by-step guides offering scams and transmitting viruses are prey for those who use the vulnerable and harmless internet and may not be accustomed to the types of drawbacks that appear online.

“There is also information offering how to protect themselves from getting caught, which only increases the number of people committing these crimes and the number of victims being scammed.”

While cyberbullying and cybersecurity have become important parts of the curriculum in many schools, Mr. Moore that important cybersecurity advice is often overlooked.

He added: ‘Ideally, prevention measures and education on such topics should be added to the curriculum and continuously reinforced before more children become victims of online crime.’