Mustafa Al-Bassam was a 16-year-old schoolboy when he was arrested for his role in cybercrimes committed by LulzSec, a gang of hackers.
In 2011, it targeted the websites of the CIA in the US, the Serious Organised Crime Agency in the UK, Fox and Sony.
The group’s actions caused serious financial damage. But it also shone a light in some dark corners of world politics and exposed the virtual weaknesses of big organisations.
Last autumn, a play at the Royal Court Theatre in London called Teh Internet Is Serious Business told their story.
Mustafa – from South London and previously known online as tFlow – was handed a 20-month suspended sentence at the age of 18, shortly before taking his A-levels, and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid community work.
He is now 20 and studying computer science at King’s College London.
After he gave a hacking demonstration at a recent conference on financial crime, The Mail on Sunday tracked him down so he could give his inside – and sometimes alarming – view of online security and provide advice on how we can protect our identity and finances.
Q. How did you gain your skills on the internet at such a young age?
A. I spent a lot of time on my computer as a child and taught myself how to program when I was about nine, using freely available online resources.
This might seem extraordinary, but it is a common story. Many people learn to program as a child, and it is going to become more common now that the UK is pushing for programming to be taught in secondary and primary schools.
Q. In your past life working on the other side of the law, did you consider yourself a ‘black hat’ hacker, someone whose prime intent was to breach internet security? And would you describe yourself now as a white hat wearer?
A. I think the white hat versus black hat label is an unhelpful oversimplification of an activity that covers the entire range of human motivation. The ethics of hacking are not black or white, but more 256 shades of grey, just like any other activity in life.