The more cyber-immersed the world becomes, the more it needs folks like Stephen Addison and his cybersecurity students at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Addison, physics professor and dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at UCA, has seen the cybersecurity program grow from nine declared cybersecurity majors — when it was launched without fanfare in the fall of 2018 — to 57 this past fall. We need ‘em all, he says. As more personal and sensitive data is stored in the cloud, cyber-crooks lie in wait like digital highwaymen. And businesses are just as susceptible as individuals.
In December, The Heritage Co. of Sherwood closed its doors after telling employees a ransomware attack had cost the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars and left it unable to make payroll. The firm, which provided telemarketing services for nonprofits and had offices in Jonesboro and Searcy, employed more than 300. Employees were informed they were losing their jobs two days before Christmas.
Addison says more companies are adding cybersecurity professionals to their teams, and Arkansas colleges are adding programs to produce them. Some schools offer cybersecurity tracks as part of computer-science degrees. The University of Arkansas and UA-Little Rock each have received designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.
Plus, six Arkansas two-year colleges are members of the Cyber Security Education Consortium (CSEC), part of the National Science Foundation: Northwest Arkansas Community College, Arkansas State University-Beebe, ASU-Mountain Home, UA-Pulaski Technical College, UA Community College-Batesville and Phillips Community College of the UA.
“The state can support multiple programs, and the need for cybersecurity professionals will continue to grow,” he says. “Cyber professionals are needed to defend corporate systems, and they are also needed to probe their own companies’ computer systems for weaknesses. It is better to find and remove weaknesses in systems before they are exploited.”
Small businesses and small towns especially are vulnerable, Addison says. Oftentimes, they don’t have the resources to survive an attack but also are more likely to pay to have the ransomware removed. In 2019, health care provider Wood Ranch Medical of Simi Valley, Calif., was forced to close after a ransomware attack left it unable to restore patients’ records, and Brookside ENT and Hearing Center of Battle Creek, Mich., went out of business after it refused to pay the hackers who then deleted all its patient data.
“Companies failing after such an attack is all too common,” Addison says. “Small towns often have insurance that will pay the cost. In many cases, even if the small business pays a ransom to recover access to its computer, there are additional costs. Frequently, data is scrambled or lost, and companies find themselves without records of who owes them money.”
The use of outdated equipment helps make smaller businesses and towns easy targets as well, he adds.
“Microsoft’s Windows 7 is no longer supported, meaning that the computers no longer receive security updates,” Addison says. “It isn’t uncommon to find a company running their accounting systems on even older systems like Windows XP. These systems still work, but they leave their users vulnerable to exploits that would be blocked by newer systems.”
Cyberseek.org, which tracks open cybersecurity jobs in the state, often has more than 1,000 jobs available.
“Cybersecurity and data science are going to be among the growing employment opportunities for a long time to come,” he says. “The number of jobs grows by the year. While some computer jobs have been off-shored to other countries, many have been on-shored in recent years. And, while some companies have off-shored their cyber security operations, I would be hard pressed to think of something that was more foolish. I anticipate that over the next decade, the number of jobs will grow faster than our ability to produce the skilled employees to fill them.”
Addison, who sits on the Governor’s Task Force on Computer Science and Cyber Security, calls cybersecurity important to the social, political and economic well-being of the state and nation. More programs, both at the certificate- and degree-levels, are needed to meet the growing demand for jobs that includes cyber law and other cyber-related areas, he stresses.
UCA uses its cyber range to teach students how networks work. Addison calls it a complete global network in a “sandbox” environment where students learn how to defend their networks, configure them for high security, detect attacks and learn how computer viruses propagate and mitigate their effects.
“Essentially, they learn how global networks should be operating, how to determine if there is hostile traffic, and they learn how to protect their own systems from that traffic.”
Addison thinks the state’s emphasis on cybersecurity complements its advancements in computer-science education. “I am confident that it will aid Arkansas in becoming a nationally prominent center for cybersecurity,” he says.