Page 53 - WilmU Spring Summer 2013

CSC, a global company that provides
technology-enabled business solutions, has
either hired or promoted at least 12 former
Cyber Wildcats for its North American Security
Services division. Several of those work in the
Threat Analysis Center, including David Alford,
a 2011 CNS graduate who was promoted in
April to Operation Lead at CSC.
Many of CSC’s hires came right out of
WilmU’s crop of recent graduates. Starting
salary can be anywhere from $40,000 to
$50,000, Alford says, but can increase based on
the employee’s performance in the company’s
multi-tiered interview process.
The abundance of promotions and hires at
CSC, Alford says, happened because “WilmU
keeps taking people who have an interest
in cyber security and turning them into true
professionals in this field, ready to tackle today’s
threats and get to the next level.”
Alford sees the trend continuing. “Overall,
I can see that Wildcats are ge ing the jobs,
ge ing the job done right, and ge ing promoted
into more demanding (and interesting) positions
faster than most other groups here [at CSC].
This is a direct result of WilmU’s CNS program
and the many great adjuncts teaching it.”
INTERNATIONAL
CHALLENGES
Many people view cyber a acks as not much
more than an annoyance or an inconvenience.
That may be why some companies don’t see
cyber security as a worthwhile expense. But
experts say cyber security should be a part
of any company’s budget, no ma er the size,
purpose or industry.
“What may be an annoyance to you could be
a major threat somewhere else,” Hufe says.
And “somewhere else” is where the biggest
challenge lies. Even the most schooled
professionals can’t always know where the
threat is coming from. For instance, Hufe says,
a keylogger (meaning an a ack that tracks
passwords and other personal information
as the user types it in) can appear to have
Korean origins, but the actual perpetrator
may be coming from someone’s basement in
Wilmington.
Call it modern-day bank robbery. The crime
rate for bank robbery has decreased over the
years, but cyber scams and identity the are on
the rise.
Denial-of-service a acks, the kind that
prevents users from logging in, are the most
common assaults on banks’ websites. In March,
National Security Agency director Gen. Keith
Alexander announced an ambitious expansion
of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, an effort
to prevent and fight DOS a acks. Within an
hour of Alexander’s announcement, Chase
Bank’s website was a acked and brought to a
standstill.
The U.S. director of National Intelligence
called cyber a acks the No. 1 threat facing the
United States this year.
And when a cyber crime is detected
overseas, ge ing other countries to prosecute
the a ackers is becoming increasingly difficult.
“You have to convince another government
to prosecute one of their citizens for bringing
money into their country from the United
States,” Hufe says. “That’s not always possible.”
Then there’s the lure of the scam itself that
makes it so hard to control it. Take overseas
lo ery scams, for example. Ge ing a grammati-
cally sloppy email with the promise of millions
of dollars – and all you have to do is give up a
litany of personal information and send a blank
check – has been around for many years and
has been used numerous times as a cautionary
tale, so it seems like no one could possibly fall
for it anymore.
But people still do.
“The Internet is growing so much that people
may be wiser, but there are more and more
people exposed to it,” Hufe says.
Part of any cyber security front is the
forensics component – finding out how, why and
where an a ack occurred. If the a ack can’t be
prevented, the next step is trying to investigate
it.
“There’s a digital trail in every crime now,”
Hufe says. “The idea is following that trail and
hoping it leads to prosecution.” WU
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the one with the passion. This is the one I want on my team”
MARK HUFE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY’S CENTER FOR CYBER SECURITY EDUCATION
SPRING/SUMMER