Ctrl + Alt + Chaos: A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Nonfiction Book on Cybersecurity and Power

*A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ SELECTION!*
*A CrimeReads Best True Crime Book of 2026!*

An immersive, pulse-pounding exposé on the global rise of teenage hackers, offering an insider's portrait of the dark net and the key players who are disrupting corporations, government institutions and our everyday lives

Julius Kivimaki, aka Zeekill, is arguably the most hated hacker in history. In one of the world’s cruelest cyberattacks, he blackmailed 30,000 psychotherapy patients with their stolen notes. Yet while the breach was singularly inhumane, Kivimaki’s rise—from twelve-year-old hacking nuisance to Most Wanted criminal—is symptomatic of a larger trend. His story gives us vital insights into how hackers, many of whom are teenagers, find their feet and become dangerous criminals.

In this gripping true crime narrative, cybersecurity correspondent Joe Tidy reveals that there is one area of the criminal underworld that is being underestimated at our peril—the dark digital underbelly where teenage boys are reshaping cybersecurity, cryptocurrency and organized crime under the noses of their parents.

Propulsive, urgent and scrupulously reported, Ctrl + Alt + Chaos tracks the rise and fall of global hacking groups to ask the question: How can we stop the cycle of teenage boys hijacking life online?

Joe Tidy is the BBC’s first ever Cyber Correspondent and the foremost voice in the corporation on cybercrime and hacking. Over the past six years he has covered all major cyber-attacks for BBC TV, Radio, social media and website. He has made documentaries about cyber security travelling to the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Germany and Ukraine to track down stories and characters. Joe’s most high-profile news feature and documentary saw him travel to Russia in November 2021 in search of the world’s most wanted cyber-criminal. This hunt was read by 1m people, viewed across social media more than 2.4m times and translated into 30 different languages across the BBC network. His top six BBC News documentaries have garnered more than 7 million views including 2.2m for The Teenage Millionaire Hacker and 1.4m for The Russian Hackers. Before joining the BBC, he was a correspondent at Sky News where he regularly reported on technology and began his decade-long obsession with cybercrime after reporting on the infamous 2014 Christmas day Lizard Squad attack.