cybersecurity
Banning white-hat hacker education is not going to stop someone from learning house to hack. Hackers by their very nature are creative, and criminals do not play by the rules. Eliminating white-hat hacker education is not going to stop hackers. Remember my earlier example of the school kids who used what they learned in computer class to figure out how to hack? Nobody explicitly taught them anything about hacking, and yet they were able to put together the pieces and figure it out for themselves.
The U.S. Army is struggling to staff, train, and equip its new cyber and electronic warfare units, and officials haven’t assessed how those challenges will affect the Pentagon’s digital capabilities, according to a congressional watchdog.
The software belonged to two of the biggest names in education tech: Blackboard and Follett. Combined, these tech firms provide online education products for more than half the schools in America. During Demirkapi’s freshman year, a mixture of boredom and aimless ambition led him to start investigating the companies’ interfaces.
Now that so much of normal life revolves around the internet, the privacy of each and every one of us is at risk. Advertisers, service providers, and governments all around the world are increasingly interested in tracking every single movement we make online.
One major area of concern for survey respondents was ransomware, which occurs when a malicious actor locks down a system and demands a ransom from the user to unlock it. Around 21 percent of those surveyed reported experiencing a ransomware attack on either their personal or work internet-connected devices. However, around two-thirds of registered voters surveyed said they would not vote for a political candidate that supported paying the attacker to unlock the system.
School districts across the country are increasingly becoming a major target of malicious cyberattacks, leaving both the federal government and state governments scrambling to find ways to fight back. Recent cyberattacks on school districts in Louisiana, Virginia and Oklahoma have highlighted the threat.
The latest university cyberattack has reignited the discussion of internet and data safety in higher education. Monroe College is the latest target, with many of its technology systems disabled and the hackers demanding around $2 million in Bitcoin to restore access. Schools must be aware of the prevalence of ransomware and should consider steps to mitigate their risk of attack.
A coalition of state government associations and federal cybersecurity agencies Monday urged state and local governments to take preventative action to protect their information technology systems from ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks have wreaked havoc on American cities small and large in recent years, costing municipalities millions in damage, ransom fees, and lost revenues.
Hackers do not much care about the size of the school district, when taking advantage of our growing dependence on technology and access. Coventry Local School District, in Akron, Ohio, has about 2,000 students in total. School was closed there entirely in May as the FBI helped guide district officials through recovery when a virus infected the network.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cybersecurity agency issued a security alert on Tuesday warning of a cyber vulnerability in small aircraft that could enable malicious actors to change key readings on the planes.