As awareness of information security and the threat of cyber terrorists increases, U.S. government agencies and businesses have beefed up security in order to thwart system outages and intrusions in mission-critical operations.

But even as bills are introduced that call for more severe penalties for those who break into computer systems, causing monetary damage and potentially putting people at risk, high-profile teen hacker cases persist.

While analysts cannot pinpoint exactly how teens find their way into heavily guarded government and enterprise computer systems, they pointed to several factors that often aid teen vandals more than adult perpetrators. These factors include easy-to-use scripting toolkits, readily available information and abundant time to learn new skills.

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