Cybersecurity experts and former hackers say that children as young as eight are being recruited into cybercrime through games like Minecraft and Roblox.
The warning comes from cybersecurity training company The Hacking Games, including testimony from former cybercriminal and current employee Conor Freeman, who says his own path into hacking began with “a cool trick” he was shown in Minecraft at age 12.
Former hacker says Minecraft “cool trick” led to cybercrime pipeline
Freeman, who now works in cybersecurity after previously serving prison time for cybercrime-related offences, said the process often begins with what appears to be harmless curiosity inside gaming communities before gradually escalating into more serious activity.
“Honestly, after fifteen years, the exact words escape me,” Freeman said, recalling the first interaction that introduced him to hacking. “What I remember is the shape of it. He asked if I wanted to see a cool trick.”
Freeman explained that another player used a cheat client to access an unreachable area of the map before offering to teach him how to do the same.
“Me, being a curious kid, said ‘sure’. That’s how it began.”
According to Freeman, what started as experimenting with cheats slowly escalated into more serious activity over time.
Dexerto / MojangFreeman said he was groomed through Minecraft.
“What started as messing around on Minecraft became taking over other people’s accounts. Taking over accounts became stealing cryptocurrency,” he said. “Each step felt small from where I was standing.”
Freeman said recruitment began through seemingly harmless interactions inside games before conversations were moved elsewhere, previously platforms like Skype and now commonly Discord.
“That off-platform shift is the moment it starts,” he explained. “You feel like you’ve been let into something secretive.”
Roblox replaces blocked chat with AI “auto generated summaries”
Schlep calls out YouTube for age restricting Roblox content months after platform ban
The warnings come alongside growing concern from law enforcement agencies about young people engaging in cybercrime-related activity online.
According to the UK’s National Crime Agency, one in five children aged 10 to 16 has engaged in online behavior that could violate the Computer Misuse Act, including hacking and unauthorized access activity.
Europol and FBI data cited by The Hacking Games also claimed 61% of cybercrime suspects started hacking before the age of 16, with many first engaging through gaming cheat forums.
Freeman said one of the biggest challenges for parents is that the behavior often looks indistinguishable from ordinary gaming.
“The grooming doesn’t sound like anything. It doesn’t look like anything,” he said. “It reads like gaming, because from the outside that’s what it is.”
The Hacking Games CEO, Fergus Hay, said that the same technical curiosity that can pull children toward cybercrime can also translate into legitimate cybersecurity careers if identified early enough.
“The kid who gets spotted in a Roblox server by a criminal recruiter and the kid who ends up on a red team often have the same aptitude and same instincts,” he said. “The only difference is who got to them first.”
The company points to 4.8 million unfilled cybersecurity roles globally, stating that many young gamers already possess problem-solving and technical skills that traditional hiring pathways often overlook.
Roblox responds to cybercrime concerns
Roblox has previously acknowledged cybercrime as an “industry-wide challenge,” stating the platform works closely with law enforcement and has hired young security talent through ethical hacking programs.
“We work closely with law enforcement and other partners to report cyber-enabled crime. We’ve hired several young people directly from the HackerOne program who now work full-time at Roblox, securing our systems,” the company said.
With cases like these becoming increasingly common, The Hacking Games has developed a HAPTAI (Hacking Aptitude AI) assessment designed to identify cybersecurity aptitude in gamers and young internet users help them reach legitimate pathways into the industry instead of cybercrime.
