​The overall rise of cybercrime is no longer being driven solely by elite hackers hidden deep inside hostile nation states. According to leading cybersecurity experts, today’s cyver crims are getting younger, less technical, thrill seeking and operating with tools so accessible that almost anyone can launch an attack.

Recently, at Atmos Sphere 2026 in Sydney James Taliento, CEO at AFTRDRK and Jeremy Kirk, Director of Intelligence at Okta described the cybercrime ecosystem that has moved into what some describe as a ‘plug and play’ criminal economy.

“It’s probably easier than ever to become a cybercriminal because of cybercrime as a service,” Kirk said. “If you want bulletproof hosting, you can buy that. If you want infostealer malware, you can rent that from another threat actor. If you want to deploy an infostealer against a group of targets, you can buy a distribution service that will distribute the malware.”

Growing concerns and commentary inside the cybersecurity industry is that hacking has lifted from a highly specialised underground discipline into a scalable online marketplace. A marketplace where credentials, phishing kits, malware and infrastructure can all be purchased as services.

And according to Taliento, there is another element adding fuel to the problem is around image and status.

“Cybercrime is sexy,” Taliento said. “Being an outlaw has always been kind of like a cool thing, like a dark art.”

He warned that younger generations are more and more drawn toward cybercrime not only for financial gain, but for notoriety and lifestyle.

“You’ve got these young people that can do it without carrying a gun,” he said. “They can go and deploy some malware, they go do some crazy stuff. They can be impactful and get a little bit of fame.”

The ascent of modern ransomware ecosystem, particularly groups operating from Russia and Eastern Europe continues to thrive because of geopolitical realities and jurisdictional protections.

“Russia doesn’t extradite its own citizens,” Kirk explained. “Unless those threat actors decide to travel to another jurisdiction that would agree to extradite, they could remain kind of out there.”

Taliento went further, arguing that Russian cybercrime operations often blur the line between organised crime and state backed activity.

“Russia on the other hand is very different in the way they go about it,” Taliento said. “They commission their criminal citizens to go and do their dirty work. There’s always some state sponsored nexus somewhere in any Russian based cybercrime.”

He said ransomware groups are openly glamorising wealth and excess online to recruit the next generation of operators.

“These youngsters idolise that,” Taliento said. “Who doesn’t want to be rich and live the rock star lifestyle? Who doesn’t want to fly around in a private jet, drive a Ferrari? And that’s what these ransomware groups are doing.”

The experts also warned that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are lowering the barrier to entry even further.

“There’s lots of tutorials on how to do cybercrime online,” Kirk said. “You don’t have to be super technical to just buy stolen credentials.”

He noted that phishing kits, credential marketplaces and session cookie theft have become commoditised services that allow inexperienced actors to bypass traditional security controls.

“Bypassing MFA is pretty easy these days,” Kirk warned. “It’s easy to trick victims into giving up the token or pushing on the push notification.”

The result, according to both experts, is an explosion in the scale and accessibility of cybercrime.

“It is expanding because there are no borders,” Taliento said. “There is an even playing ground that we’re all on… called the Internet.”
“As long as you have an Internet connection and a PC, you’re good to go.” He added.

The elevated concerns that governments and legitimate cybersecurity organisations are struggling to compete for talent against the allure of cybercrime culture.

Younger people may now view cybercrime as more attractive than spending years in university or working in government security roles.

Kirk said some English speaking cybercriminal groups that were once dismissed as low level cryptocurrency thieves are now successfully targeting major enterprises and bypassing sophisticated defences.

“What changed was that they started to attack enterprises and businesses,” Kirk said. “Suddenly there was this realisation of like, oh wait, these aren’t just people in their own sort of sphere anymore.”

Despite the growing threat environment, both experts argued that many attacks remain preventable, particularly if organisations focus on identity protection, access controls and reducing exposure.

“If I was a CISO I would kind of do three things,” Kirk said, pointing to phishing resistant authentication, passwordless technologies and tighter controls around AI agents and SaaS systems.

Taliento, however, said many organisations still fundamentally misunderstand overall cybersecurity risk.

“Security needs to be made real,” he said. “All of these big companies have significant investments in security and they’re still getting hacked.”

He criticised what he described as checkbox driven security strategies that prioritise buying products over understanding actual threats.

“They just go and they invest in a lot of product and there’s really no rhyme or reason to it,” Taliento said. “It’s not appropriately strategised and they’re not really forecasting the threats that they’re going to encounter.”

Currently, the changing psychology behind modern cybercrime has grown.

According to Taliento, many attackers are no longer motivated purely by money or ideology… but by the thrill and excitement itself.

“It’s thrill seeking,” he said. “That’s a motive we’ve never really talked about in this industry over the years.”

Kirk agreed, warning that online communities on platforms like Telegram and Discord are fuelling a dangerous culture of peer recognition and online notoriety.

“It’s not only the financial payout, it’s the lure of peer adulation,” Kirk said. “They’re operating in groups… and just being delighted with it all too.”

Watch the full interview here: https://kbi.media/interview/jeremy-kirk-and-james-taliento/