Autism, Cybercrime, and Security’s Skill Struggle – Dark Reading

On the 14th of March, An Independent News Source by the name of Slimgigs posted an article called “Autism, Cybercrime, and Security’s Skill Struggle – Dark Reading”. I could not find information on whether this website was biased, but it seems to be unbiased, and uses factual information. This article talks about the experiences of a woman by the name of Rebecca Ledingham, who is the current Vice President of cybersecurity at Mastercard, as well as a former cyber agent for the UK’s National Crime Agency. She noticed a trend early on, about cybercriminals having many different social behaviours. After these many criminals got detained, a majority of them were diagnosed with some form of Autism. The Article also talks about how many Cybergangs are manipulating teenagers with Autism, who are easier to manipulate, but also have exceptional skills with coding, due to a common autistic trait called hyperlexia, which is an extreme focus on letters and numbers, which is very important in code. They also talk about minor hacking programs in video games like Fortnite, where people as young as 14 years old are part of a hacking program for the game.

I love this article for a few reasons. First of all with my shift towards the manipulation aspect of cybercrime, Autism is a huge topic I can talk about, as it is pretty common, with 1 in 68 children in the U.S.A being diagnosed with Autism according to the CDC. Another reason being the amount of information they give, from the reasons that people with Autism excel in cybercrime, to what businesses should know when hiring a cybersecurity analyst with autism, and how they can benefit from it. People with Autism have a very common trait called hyperlexia. Hyperlexia makes people with Autism very good with numbers, letters, and patterns, often giving them very strong reading skills, as well as making them very strong with math and other logic based problems such as coding. They also bring up other information that makes them strong in the Cybersecurity industry, as well as making them strong cybercriminals – their amazing memory. In the article it states “A photographic memory is another trait seen in people with autism”, “It’s another quality that could, for example, help them think of a network architecture and visualize security holes.” They also give us some information that I found to be quite information, which also tied into my shift of focus, the “grooming” cybercriminals do to manipulate these autistic teenagers, some as young as 14 years old to hack for them. These cybercriminals act like their friends, until they have gotten them hooked onto their gang, and then they use them. Its very despicable but true information, which I’m happy they covered, to get the information out there. Finally the last point I really agree with is what business should know about Autistic employees. The article states things like “Organizations could benefit by welcoming employees with autism, but many don’t know how.” A statement like this is one I believe to be very true, and is really important information. They speak about how “the more you spell things out [for them], the easier it is” to work with them to benefit your company. They speak about how Microsoft has been successful, as many of the top Cybersecurity analysts have Autism. I believe this article has some great information on how these people with Autism are both strong allies when it comes to cybersecurity, as well as powerful enemies if they get manipulated by these crime groups.