It's easy enough to focus on the major breaches of 2012 and feel a certain hopelessness. But this year was a banner one for busting black hat bad guys. Several major international operations reaped a harvest of hackers, from big-shot Russian gangsters to bored British teens. This was the year they locked up the world's biggest pirate in Sweden. And the gangly Anonymous guy who probably should have worn the mask but didn't.

The thoughtful cybercriminal should be sure to consider some questions in the year ahead. Who can you trust? How long can you run? Is bragging really worth it? And, of course, when a hacker's girl displays her breasts, is she showing more than she knows?