Hacker High School Teaches Cyber Security Skills To Teens
High school students thinking about a college education and career in the cybersecurity field may want to begin preparing now. There are numerous programs to help high schoolers learn about cybersecurity, gain experience for potential summer internships, and enhance college applications.
Hacker Highschool provides a set of free hands-on, e-book lessons designed specifically for teens to learn cybersecurity and critical Internet skills. These are lessons that challenge teens to be as resourceful and creative as hackers with topics like safe Internet use, web privacy, online research techniques, network security, and even dealing with cyber-bullies. The full program contains teaching materials in multiple languages, physical books with additional lessons, and back-end support for high school teachers and home schooling parents.
The non-profit ISECOM researches and produces the Hacker Highschool Project as a series of lesson workbooks written and translated by the combined efforts of volunteers world wide. The result of this research are books based on how teens learn best and what they need to know to be better hackers, better students, and better people.
Heimdal Security, a cybersecurity software company based in Denmark, teaches how to secure your online world in just five weeks of free cyber security training. The lessons are provided every two days via email. The program teaches computer security basics including how to set up your security system and acquire a basic cyber security vocabulary - to real useful cybersecurity skills which discover how cyber attacks work, how to avoid virus infections and how you can counteract their malicious consequences.
The Heimdal program is a good way for teens to learn by doing. Cyber Security for Beginners is a good program for students or anyone looking to break into the cybersecurity industry.
The Institute for Cybersecurity Education
The Institute for Cybersecurity Education offers an advanced four-year high school Cyber Security track, implemented as a CTE track offered to the general school population and at IT Specialty schools with enrollment and matriculation requirements. The paid program -- which costs approximately $1,500 over four years -- claims to be the only organization to successfully develop and implement a secondary cybersecurity course track during the normal school day and year. What that means is, high school students can use elective periods beginning with the 9th grade and continuing through the 12th grade, to take specific courses, in a specific sequence, culminating in job ready skills.
A good starting point for students who may not be ready for a structured program (yet) is Sophos' introduction to computer viruses and online threatsaurus -- a primer on cyber threat terms.
A complete read through the A to Z threatsaurus concludes with safety tips on how to avoid hoaxes, viruses, trojans, worms, and spyware -- how to avoid phishing schemes -- how to choose secure passwords -- and then some topics for actual cyber pros. Some of this is advanced reading material for high school students, but they can stop at any point.
For high schoolers and parents wondering about career opportunities -- there are one million cybersecurity jobs in 2016. U.S. News and World Report ranked a career in information security analysis eighth on its list of the 100 best jobs for 2015. They state the profession is growing at a rate of 36.5% through 2022. Many information security analysts enter the job market with a bachelor’s degree in computer science with an information or cybersecurity specialty, programming or engineering.