Coming out Spring 2025: award-winning BBC Cyber correspondent Joe Tidy’s groundbreaking book Ctrl+Alt+Chaos: How Teenage Hackers Hijack the Internet
Elliott & Thompson is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Joe Tidy’s revelatory new book Ctrl+Alt+Chaos: How Teenage Hackers Hijack the Internet. Publisher Katie Bond acquired World English rights from Caroline Hardman at Hardman & Swainson. Ctrl+Alt+Chaos will be published in print and digital formats on 5th June 2025, with simultaneous audiobook publication by W.F Howes in the UK & Commonwealth. Hardman & Swainson have also had early translation interest and Bazar Kustannus pre-empted Finnish rights.
Ctrl+Alt+Chaos is a gripping true crime narrative about the life and crimes of Julius Kivimaki, aka Zeekill, arguably the most hated hacker in history. Cyber correspondent Joe Tidy has investigated and interviewed the most infamous teenage hacker gangs of the past decade for the BBC, and previously for Sky News. Now he unveils the dark digital underbelly where teenage boys are reshaping cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and organised crime under the noses of their parents. Kivimaki’s journey from 12-year-old nuisance hacker to a Most Wanted cybercriminal culminated in his 2023 capture for the cruellest hack in history – where he blackmailed 30,000 Finnish psychotherapy patients with their stolen notes. Kivimaki’s journey gives us vital insights into how hackers are created online. Joe tracks the rise and fall of groups like LulzSec, HTP, UG Nazi, and Lizard Squad with exclusive interviews with the hackers who were there and the police officers trying to stop them. He also draws parallels with recent high-profile attacks from other teenage gangs and ask the question – how can we stop the cycle of teenage boys causing havoc to our digital lives?
Joe Tidy, author of Ctrl+Alt+Chaos says:
‘I’ve reported on some of the most devastating cyber attacks in history, but nothing comes close to the callous cruelty of the Vastaamo hack. What drove the 12-year-old Julius Kivimaki AKA Zeekill to become the most wanted and hated cybercriminal? Zeekill wasn’t created in a vacuum and in Ctrl+Alt+Chaos we’ll dive deep into the subculture of teenage hacking to find out how he and so many other boys hone their skills in secret online communities to emerge and wreak havoc on our modern digitised worlds.’
Katie Bond, Publisher at Elliott & Thompson, says:
‘Joe Tidy’s unparalleled access to the world of teenage hackers is timely, thought-provoking and terrifying. Ctrl+Alt+Chaos reads like a techno-thriller, combining expert knowledge with storytelling prowess, but it offers crucial insight into the power dynamics of our digital world and asks urgent questions about its future.’
ABOUT JOE TIDY
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 their 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.