We tend to get a little serious about security at InfoWorld. Following the lead of ace contributing editor Roger Grimes, we focus on the ingenuity of new exploits and the endless race to stay ahead of criminal hackers who pounce... We tend to get a little serious about security at InfoWorld. Following the lead of ace contributing editor Roger Grimes, we focus on the ingenuity of new exploits and the endless race to stay ahead of criminal hackers who pounce on every new vulnerability. And we seldom fail to note that, all things considered, we’re losing the battle.Except, that is, when hackers shoot themselves in the foot. For the second year in a row we present you with Stupid Hacker Tricks, an assortment of tales about exploits that went off the rails and the perpetrators who bungled them. This year, author Andy Brandt turns his high-intensity interrogation lamp on youth, to see how soft-focus teen dreams of hacker infamy collapsed into hard time.What’s striking, though, is that the adulation of one’s peers no longer provides the main motive for hacking, even among those of a tender age. The reason is the same that drives evildoing adults: cold, hard cash. One enterprising youth succeeded in absconding with over $4.5 million, although his partner appeared to get most of it. The other striking detail is that you don’t need to be the proverbial genius hacker kid to pry your way into the corporate network. As one juvy put it, “It’s so easy, a caveman can do it.” Security professionals generally don’t like being lumped in the Cro-Magnon category, so in the interests of avoiding bone-headed security mistakes, each one of our anecdotes includes a “lessons learned” section. So there’s a serious side to this article after all. Technology Industry