FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Behind screens, a new generation is learning how to code, how to use AI, and sometimes, even how to hack.
“It’s a very toxic and edgy corner of the internet, and like not a lot of people know that,” Matthew Lane told ABC News.
Lane admits he is addicted to hacking.
At 19 years old, he cracked into PowerSchool, the student information system based in California and used by schools across the country.
“A friend that I knew, he put me on a bot, this game cheating – the Roblox cheating program. And then I started to get into that. And just kind of spiraled from there,” Lane said.
He is one of the many Gen Z hackers now behind major data breaches, a troubling trend revealed by an ABC News investigation.
“The overlap between a hacker and a gamer is 100 percent,” Fergus Hay at The Hacking Games said. “Every hacker is a gamer.”
Hay believes today’s teens are especially susceptible to going down the wrong path online.
“They feel like the world has not been left for them,” Hay said. “There’s a big detachment. And they’ve grown up in a world of institutional crisis … But this young generation, you can get them before they do the bad stuff.”
At the Clovis Unified Police Department, Sergeant Corey Taylor believes prevention starts with parents.
“Parents should have real-life conversations with their students,” Sgt. Taylor said. “Open that level of communication.”
He says teens often lack the foresight to realize the consequences behind their actions.
“They don’t always forward think about the future and what this can do, and the long-term consequences that can come from this, that can affect their jobs, their careers, housing opportunities in the future, and even not travel opportunities.”
Last year, Lane pleaded guilty, and a judge sentenced him to four years in federal prison. He must pay more than $14 million in restitution.
According to the Justice Department, Lane’s breach “put at risk the security of 60 million children and 10 million teachers.”
Now in prison in Connecticut, Lane hopes his story is a message to teens everywhere.
“I want to be a cautionary tale and tell them that you can, you know, divert these – the skill, the skill set you have is a blessing,” Lane said. “You should be using it not to take but to give to the people.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Roblox wrote that:
“Cybercrime is an industry-wide challenge, and we have zero tolerance for such acts on our platform. Roblox has a robust safety and security system dedicated to detecting and stopping bad actors, and we deploy cutting-edge anti-cheat technology designed to prevent exploitation across the Roblox ecosystem. We work closely with law enforcement to combat cybercrime and report any suspicious activity to the FBI. While no system is perfect, we continue to evolve our protections every day.”
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