THE INTRIGUE OF CYBERSECURITY

By Carmelyn Daley-Hinkens

It involves mystery. Fascination. And a healthy dose of suspicion.

Those are just a few of the qualities that have attracted students Kim Hinson and Bhuwan Tiwari to Cybersecurity at Fox Valley Technical College.

Kim will graduate in May with a Cybersecurity Specialist associate degree. Her previous career was in cosmetology but while doing some soul-searching during the COVID-19 pandemic she decided to start a new career.

“Honestly, what drew me to the program was the concept of hacking,” Kim offers. “By that, I mean the ethical way of being a hacker and doing it for the good of other people.”

For Bhuwan, he wants to incorporate Cybersecurity courses into his learning while he pursues Software Developer and Web Development & Design Specialist associate degrees.

“I am fascinated with cybersecurity because as a developer, I’m writing code that could affect millions of lives and I have to be aware of vulnerabilities,” Bhuwan explains. “I need to think about how someone could breach the program as I’m writing it.”

FVTC has long offered Information Technology courses that touch upon security. But in recent years the program was renamed Cybersecurity Specialist to better reflect what students would learn.

“Before, the curriculum focused on guarding data and safeguards to keep information secure,” explains Joe Wetzel, department chair of Information Technology. “Cybersecurity Specialist deals with software, networking, policies and human factors. It’s interwoven into everything.”

The Cybersecurity Specialist is a 61-credit associate degree that includes courses like Network Essentials, Operating Systems Security, Computer Crime Investigation, and yes, Ethical Hacking. The class exposes students to techniques hackers use to discover vulnerabilities in systems. By learning how a hacker thinks, students learn how to react to protect computer networks.

“It’s a shift in how our students think,” Joe explains. “In class, we may start with a vulnerable system and the students must exploit it, then they realize, ‘Wow, this is bad. How can I make sure this does not happen to me?’ Then they go through the process of securing the system. They learn to mitigate it and prevent the security breach in the future.”

As a two-year program, the goal is to give students the tools they need, train them on those tools and get them into the industry as quickly as possible.

“I believe our students like Kim and Bhuwan are just as prepared as a four-year graduate to start their career. Our students graduate knowing many tools and processes employers use before they enter the workplace and can get to work right away. Our students are turnkey.”

$74,337 average annual salary for IT grads 5 years after graduation

The college’s Cybersecurity Command Center is a safe space for students to compete in ethical hacking competitions that include decoding strings, cracking passwords and even more aggressive challenges. Students get points when they complete hacking challenges and a leaderboard tracks the competitors.

• • • Video + more of this story available online at: www.fvtc.edu/CommandCenter