IB students learn ins, outs of cybersecurity
Mary Lett
pnj.com
A trio of Pensacola High IB students have spent much of their summer vacation learning how to hack and detect cyberattacks during a summer internship at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.
Along with cybersecurity, Scott Phillips, 17, Zach Beltzer, 16, and Zofia Uszok, 15, also studied computer programming, networking and coding during the training that started in early June and ended Thursday.
The internship's goal was to teach the students penetration tactics — hacking skills and familiarize them with how cyberattacks are carried out on computer networks, routers and servers, said Larry Bunch, an IHMC senior research associate who worked with the students.
"I wanted them to understand how hackers think and how to approach hacking," Bunch said, adding he was most impressed with the students' knowledge of computer programming and their desire to learn new skills. "Some high school students today are at a skills level that college students were decades ago."
The students also learned how easy it is to become a victim of a cyberattack, as well as steps to prevent hackers from accessing and stealing personal information.
PHS senior Scott advises the public to beware of social engineering — hackers who trick one person into clicking a suspicious link and get beyond a security firewall. He explained this not only jeopardizes the initial party's personal information but everyone else on that network or server.
"Hackers are not ethical, it's a business, they do it for the money," he said, adding one of the most common tactics used is a denial of services where an entire network can be shutdown by a single hacker or group of hackers.
"The PlayStation network was overloaded about two years ago and it was down for two weeks," he said, citing an example of denial of services.
Zach said he will remember never login to important (bank or credit cards) personal accounts on unprotected networks.
"There's a lot of traffic on these open networks in public places. It's scary how easy it is (to have personal information compromised)," said the 11th-grader.
Zofia has been fascinated with cybersecurity after reading about the security hacks at several banks and retailers.
"I became very interested in computers over the last couple of months and the available careers and jobs in the field," said Zofia, a 10th-grader.
The teens said the internship was a great opportunity to learn hands-on. The three actually were able to view numerous hackers from all over the world attempting to access IHMC's websites in nearly real time. They also trained on virtual networks — IP addresses, public and private websites.
"I really learned a lot of practical skills," said Scott, who wants to pursue a career in engineering. "Mr. Bunch was great. There was a lot of stuff to learn about hacking but he was right next to us, helping make it understandable."
This was the first year IHMC held an internship program and the students worked from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Zach and Zofia said they hope to return next summer.