A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania teen on Thursday confessed he tried to hack the Brussels Airport computer system last March. The attempt fell on the night of March 22-23, just hours after ISIS claimed responsibility for three separate bombings that killed 32 civilians in the Belgium city. The events were unrelated, the FBI said. Though the 14-year-old was unsuccessful, the endeavor was part of a larger and more frightening trend - hackers are aiming for high-profile targets with unwavering determination, from businesses like Snapchat and YAHOO! to international airports. "Airports and other industrials are the highest-reward targets," CUJO CEO and cybersecurity expert Einaras Gravrock told us Friday. "If a hacking group shuts down a factory, that factory is very likely to pay ransom." Airports' online networks are relatively easy to hack for experienced cyber thieves. Many aren't protected by first-rate security software. "If you think of an airport as a large enterprise, you can make a case that it is the least secure enterprise in terms of cybersecurity," Gravrock explained. "There are obvious challenges with hackers attempting to take over systems for ransomware or other exploits. Next time you're at an airport, notice all of the PCs in terminals and gates that may be empty. A USB stick with malware is all it takes for penetration." Illegal online attacks of all kinds are on the rise, with more than 18 million malware samples captured during the third quarter of 2016, an average of 200,000 per day. "There are a lot of opportunistic and curiosity-driven criminals, but there are also really advanced and well-funded criminal groups that have specific targets," Kestutis Malakauskas, CUJO Chief Security Officer and Barclays Vice President of Cyber Monitoring Operations, told us Friday. "It is just a matter of persistence and sophistication used with a sprinkle of social engineering." The statistics are clear - hackers aren't slowing down. "We definitely expect to see a huge increase of similar attacks," Malakauskas said. A December 2016 report from Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that overall financial losses from cybercrime would reach more than $6 trillion annually by 2021. In 2015, it was just $3 trillion. How can US law enforcement win the war on cybercrime? Should Congress enforce harsher penalties for hackers? "The laws here in the US are certainly strict when it comes to hacking. There are numerous cases of hackers getting hard time," Gravrock said. "That said, they have not deterred mass hacking. It's extremely difficult to apprehend a hacker unless you allocate very significant resources. If you're a local police station investigating ransomware at a local hotel or hospital, you have no chance. As far as the FBI, in most cases these hackers will be in countries where the FBI is not welcome. That's a big challenge - you can get robbed or extorted, but you cannot call the cops to help you." Cybercriminals are especially tricky to prosecute - as seen with the Brussels Airport incident, malware can infiltrate an online network from thousands of miles away. The conflicting locations of the perpetrator and the crime committed muddle the boundaries of legal jurisdiction. "You can rob five banks from a country that doesn't have any law enforcement or collaboration liabilities with the US, and local law enforcement agencies would be powerless to prosecute those persons most of the time," Malakauskas said.