As soon as the dragon started sleeping off its binge, Susanoo got to work hacking it to bits.

This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.

Kenneth Geers of NATO’s cyberwar centre in Estonia says the hacking boom makes it easier for cyber-spies to pass off their work as the handiwork of a misguided rebellious teenager.