New York has opened its a cyber security college, called St. Bonaventure University, which is located in Western New York. This university will train 170 students in cyber security defense and other technical skills. The University will allow students to train themselves on modern cyber security strategies, tools, and participate in simulated attacks. The university will also be selling the skills of its students and faculty by providing protection to customers. The university will also research new methods of detecting, defending against, and defeating cyber attacks. It has the patronage of 3 large organizations which are the National ICT Japan, Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity, and the New Zealand Cybersecurity Center. The St. Bonaventure University has actually been offering a bachelor’s degree in cyber security since 2016 and currently has ~20 students enrolled; it hopes to increase the number of students to ~120 by 2021. Currently, it’s predicted that there will be a shortage of cyber security professionals in excess of 2 million by 2019, and that number looks like it will continue to rise as more aggressive cyber attacks continue to occur. Cyber-professionals will continue to be in demand as more infrastructure transitions to the online sector. In New York state alone, there are a reported 10,000+ vacancies for cyber professionals and there skills are becoming more valuable as companies educate themselves about the risks of cyber activity.
Effective cyber security comes from a holistic approach that handles a companies defense at all levels; a companies cyber security is only as strong as its weakest link, and many don’t realize some basic security measure they can enact. For one thing, all communications should be encrypted regardless of where they’re being sent too. The reason for this is simple, if you only encrypt important things then anything encrypted is important. Rather than make it obvious what you’re trying to protect, make everything encrypted to throw would be attackers off the trail. On the subject of email safety, make sure to educate employees about the dangers of emails from unknown senders. When in doubt, report the email to the IT department and let them check it out. Emails can be dangerous to open, but never open or download attachments unless you know the sender. Employers should strive to implement multi-factor authentication in their email systems to make it more difficult for attackers to get into protected email accounts. A dedicated attacker will eventually find their way through any static security measures, but they buy time for the cyber security team to track down and deal with potential attackers. Companies, and individuals, need to be aware of the risks that their activities online expose them too and take steps to minimize said risks.
Max is a Data Privacy Coordinator at a major global law firm and a science fiction author residing in the Philadelphia area. He has been writing for https://www.askcybersecurity.com since early 2017.