Children are
51 times more likely to be a victim of identity theft fraud than adults. - Carnegie Mellon University CyLab study
Boot Camp, Whitehatters mentor high school students as they learn techniques used to defend an infrastructure from attackers and gain career insight from industry professionals.
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HE GOAL IS TO FEND OFF the guys in the black hats – criminals who are relentless. And, of course, they aren’t just attacking individuals and their personal devices. Companies of all sizes and types – including and especially financial, educational and health institutions – face a barrage of attempted breaches every day. The digital security firm Gemalto, which keeps an upto-date global tally with its Breach Level Index, reports that more than 9 billion data records have been lost or stolen since 2013. In the first half of 2017, it says, 10.5 million records were lost or stolen every day. Large-scale databases are often the target – and if every single person connected to that database isn’t careful, your information is at risk. A major university, such as USF, is like a “mini city,” says Alex Campoe, USF’s chief information security officer. And unfortunately, not everyone within the walls of the city is on guard all the time. There are records and research files to poach and hackers are just sitting there waiting for someone to make a mistake.
“It’s a bit of a cat and mouse game,” Campoe says. Systems are constantly being monitored and patched. The online world keeps evolving, and so do its hackers. Twenty years ago, Campoe says, the threat was mostly from “script kiddies,” hackers who defaced web pages for the thrill and to prove their prowess to their peers. Today, there are also “mobster” hackers, hired by large-scale criminal enterprises to procure log-in information that can be used to get money. There are “hacktivists,” who will hijack a website in protest or to promote a social cause. And there are “nation-state” hackers, or “anarchists”
PHOTOS Pgs. 32-33: Nathan Fisk, assistant professor of cybersecurity education, teaches high school students about online safe behavior and careers in cybersecurity at the GenCyber Summer Camp.
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