Cyber Security: CityU program cultivates industry professionals

By Anna King

Velocity Contributor

The Internet once was just a casual place to check e-mail or watch YouTube. Now it runs complex systems such as the nation’s power grid, hydroelectric dams and trains.

The only problem? The same system keeping energy flowing and trains running on time may be used for evil. Computer professionals say a catastrophe, such as Pearl Harbor or Sept. 11, can be triggered by a hacker on a computer an ocean away.

Increasingly, the federal government and private companies need more information security professionals to keep critical data and systems safe from hackers. On Capitol Hill recently, President Obama introduced a new cybersecurity mandate while U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates works on creating a cyber command in the Pentagon.

Keeping pace with the changing world is City University of Seattle. The university launches a new Master of Science in Information Security program this fall to educate the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. Interactive classes are expected to help students to detect problems in popular computer programs.

“If you love spy movies then you are going to be great in this industry,” says Dan Morrill, program director for CityU’s Information System, Computer Science and Information Security department.

“Computer science is sexy. We no longer hold true to the older stereotype of an out of shape, Mountain Dew drinking, pizza eating nerd like you see portrayed in the popular media,” Morrill says. “Today’s computer science graduate is just like everyone else who follows their passion and wants to help protect people from cyber criminals. Our modern day leaders like Kees Lune, Clement Dupuis and Nathan Lambert are all smart, savvy people who live real lives and are changing the face of information security as we know it.”

Those in step with today’s technology trends and who hope to become savvy professionals can find challenging careers in the Pacific Northwest. The area continues to be an IT hotbed - filled with people who are developing the new defenses in the digital security war, says Karen Worstell, managing principal for W Risk Group, a Gig Harbor-based cybersecurity consultant company.

In the Pacific Northwest, Microsoft, Expedia and Boeing remain leading inventors of new tools to foil hackers while privately-held companies employ more security online professionals than government in some cases, Worstell says.

Globally, Worstell says importance of cybersecurity became apparent after violent protests over Iran’s presidential leadership broke out and sparked a flood of social networking that was eventually policed by the ruling Iranian government. The political group limited the free flow of information over social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Keeping information flowing freely on the Internet and preventing cyber warfare will only become more complicated as time goes on, Worstell says.

Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, director of the Center of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the University of Washington, agrees with Worstell’s concerns. She says targeted acts by the government could lead to other problems, such as hackers or other organized forces, which may use the Internet to intentionally harm people.

Today, companies need people who are excited by these global technology puzzles and aspire to learn defensive tactics to stop would-be hackers, Endicott-Popovsky says.

“We are in an arms race with people who subvert a tool (the Internet) that was created for positive reasons,” she says. “There are not going to be text books. You have to be willing to continually learn and you have to have peers and friends … that can help bring you along.”

CityU is one of the first universities in the region to offer an Information Security degree that shows people how to solve real-world cyber problems.

Students should expect to learn about cyber crime, cyber terrorism and cyber warfare, Morrill says. The 48-credit program will use the latest real world examples in the classroom.

“We are going to teach people to take apart code and learn how to find out what’s wrong with it,” says Morrill.

However, as hackers get more creative and use new tools, cybersecurity professionals must be wily and think outside-the-box to anticipate future threats.

A Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) team of scientists makes daily efforts to keep up with this demand at their Richland, Wash. office. Deborah Frincke, PNNL chief scientist in cybersecurity, says hackers continue to target individual people through junk e-mail to gain access to larger companies or government agencies.

To win the cyberwar, Frincke and Morrill say the industry needs well-educated talent and evolving public policy to keep citizens and sensitive systems safe.

“If we don’t it will just be this continued Wild West approach,” Frincke says. “Some will have really good security by building tall fences and hiring really good guns and others will just be stomped over. I don’t want to see that.”

For more information on the Master of Science in Information Security program or the Oct. 1 registration deadline, visit www.cityu.edu or cs.cityu.edu/?page_id=41.