Calvin Teaches Students How To Hack Technology - News

"We hack everything."

These are the words of Brian Paige, vice president of information technology at Calvin University.

That's right - the words of Calvin's Chief Information Officer.

He and his students are busy at work on Mondays and Thursdays at 3:30 p.m.

"This is a hacking class," said Paige.

Hit the range

Information Security (CS364) is co-taught by Paige and his colleague Adam Vedra, the University's Chief Information Security Officer.

The two spend a lot of time with their students in the US Cyber ​​Range, a virtual computer security lab specially designed for practicing hacking and counter-hacking techniques in a controlled environment.

"The Cyber ​​Range provides an environment in which some of the tools related to cybersecurity can be legally and safely investigated," said Enoch Mwesigwa, a senior computer science major. "This has helped me to better understand the hackers' mindset and to frustrate and recognize them."

Because of this, Vedra and Paige want their students not only to learn the concepts, but also to practice them in a laboratory.

"We have the ability to create environments that mimic real-world situations," said Vedra. “You go through the steps an attacker would go through to obtain information and passwords. It opens their eyes to see how easy it can be when properly trained ... and it gives them the ability to defend themselves against these types of attacks. "

Establish timely and historical connections

The laboratories imitate real situations, but also the concepts discussed in class.

“Any of our classes could be torn from the headlines. We often take the daily headline literally from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or Wired, whether it's a nation-state cyber war or credit card company hacks, ”Paige said. "The reason it's so exciting is because you find the same topics that we talk about on the daily news."

And while the relevance of the concepts appeals to the students, it is also important to put the topics in a historical context.

“One aspect of this course that caught my eye is how the professors said that cybersecurity is a product of 'evolution' rather than 'revolution'. Hacking is not a radically new way of compromising a system, but an evolution from earlier methods of espionage or sabotage, ”said Mwesigwa. “It's fascinating how true that is. Malware is introduced into a system in much the same way that the Trojan Horse broke the walls of Troy. Hackers assess network weaknesses in much the same way that scouts would assess the weaknesses of a castle in the Middle Ages. "

And Paige says it goes back even further.

"The Bible doesn't talk much about computer security, but the whole idea of ​​wars and wartime and Shibboleth and to be able to transmit encrypted messages we think that's biblical too," said Paige. "We surprise our students by actually going back all the way there."

"Knowing about this demystifies some of the cybersecurity jargon and methodology," said Mwesigwa. "This will both help me explain technical aspects of security to someone who is less technologically inclined (which is a valuable skill in software development) and how I evaluate and secure a system."

Ready to lead

It is an important skill for Enoch to have learned when he took up a position in software development at Bloomberg after graduating in May.

"This class has already changed the way I approach software development," said Mwesigwa. "I am more aware of and informed about various security standards in the industry."

This is why the Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at Calvin teach students to hack.

“We give the students a toolkit that they can use to take various measures or countermeasures. We have a tool that cracks passwords, takes control of someone's computer, and can turn a webcam on and off, ”said Paige. "As soon as students realize how common these tools are, how easy they are to use, once trained in taking countermeasures, they move from fear to informed suspicion and start thinking about how to defend myself against them."

In essence, they're starting to develop a game book.

"In order for a football team to develop a good defense, it has to understand how the offense is carried out, all the positions, the players, how everything works," said Vedra. “That's exactly what we're doing here. We just show the students how the offense works and ask them: How are you going to develop a defense? "

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