From Hacker to Hero
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From Hacker to Hero
What if the most determined hacker you’ll face in 2030 is already at work – as a 15-year-old gamer with a puzzle habit?
In this episode of Threat Talks, host Lieuwe Jan Koning sits down with former FBI Supervisory Special Agent William McKeen, and the conversation feels like stepping behind the curtain of the cyber underground.
McKeen shows how teenagers pick up intrusion skills not from Hollywood tropes, but from game mods, online clans, challenge boards, and simple digital dares. He recounts real investigations where minors breached major tech companies, global social networks, and even industrial control environments – powered by nothing more than curiosity, time, and an internet connection.
Then comes the twist: most of these kids weren’t malicious – just invisible to the adults around them.
The episode explores how diversion programs like HackShield, Reboot Camp, Hack_Right, The Hacking Games, and McKeen’s own Redirect Project catch these young talents early and guide them toward ethical hacking instead of criminal charges.
You’ll hear what really happens inside youth-led attacks, the early signals adults tend to overlook, and how applying Zero Trust thinking outside the enterprise – at home and in schools – can help protect kids, reduce exposure, and build tomorrow’s cyber defenders.
Your cybersecurity experts
Lieuwe Jan Koning
Co-Founder and CTO
ON2IT
William McKeen
Former Supervisory Special Agent
FBI
Episode details
William McKeen spent fifteen years inside the FBI Cyber Division, tracking financially driven intrusions that often began in the most unexpected places – gaming chats, modding forums, and late-night online dares. In this Threat Talks episode, he reveals how that frontline experience led him to create The Redirect Project, a program designed to reach tech-savvy youth at the moment curiosity turns into risk -and steer them toward legitimate security roles instead.
Together with host Lieuwe Jan Koning, McKeen maps the quiet progression from solving puzzles in a game to testing boundaries on real systems. He walks through cases where teenagers – often working alone, often unnoticed – probed major platforms, global social networks, and even industrial or water-control environments using nothing more than time, access, and determination.
Then the conversation shifts: from risk to possibility.
McKeen explains how Dutch initiatives like HackShield, Reboot Camp, Hack_Right and The Hacking Games pull young talent out of the shadows before a criminal record locks their futures in place, redirecting their skills into ethical hacking and defense.
The episode closes with practical guidance for parents, educators, and security leaders: how to ask smarter questions, use simple safe-word checks, and apply Zero Trust principles outside the enterprise. The goal is clear – protect kids, reduce exposure, and cultivate the next wave of cyber defenders before they ever cross the line.
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