Eastland-Fairfield program teaches students about cyber security at New Albany High School

Gary Seman
·3 min read

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated with specific computer language provided by Ty James, who teaches the cyber-security class for Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools. The class at the New Albany High School satellite lab is Monday through Friday.

The effort to beat computer hackers at their own game is being taught at New Albany High School.

The Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools has set up a satellite cyber-security lab at NAHS.

Andrew Schockman, 17, is pictured at his computer station at the new cyber-security lab at New Albany High School. Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools opened the training facility this year at NAHS. Schockman, a junior at the high school, said he enrolled in the class because it sounded interesting.
Andrew Schockman, 17, is pictured at his computer station at the new cyber-security lab at New Albany High School. Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools opened the training facility this year at NAHS. Schockman, a junior at the high school, said he enrolled in the class because it sounded interesting.

Eighteen juniors are enrolled in the class, which aims to give students a crack at a job out of high school or another skill set as they head to college.

Ty James, who teaches the class for Eastland-Fairfield, said the students are learning the basics of understanding multiple-threat vectors and a layered approach to network security.

With more people working remotely from their own computers, exposure of corporate data becomes an even greater risk, James said.

"There are things that are going to introduce the threat to the network because hackers are looking for things that are opening something at work," he said. "It really increases the surface area when people are working on separate networks from their homes."

Students are learning about network design, switch and router configuration, phishing and address resolution protocol (ARP) poisoning.

"It's complicated, but it's fun," James said.

The class, which is two periods long, is held Mondays through Fridays. The students must complete two years of the program and then earn, if they wish, certification through the Computer Technology Industry Association – CompTIA – a nonprofit organization that issues such accreditation for the information-technology industry.

According to the FBI’s website, the Internet Crime Complaint Center's 2020 internet crime report, there were 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime – an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019 – and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion.

The top three crimes reported by victims in 2020, according to the website, were phishing scams, non-payment/non-delivery scams and extortion.

Victims lost the most money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes and investment fraud, the website stated. It also says 2020 saw the emergence of scams exploiting the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The need for more qualified cyber-security experts is clear, James said.

"I hear from students two years out making $80,000 a year (as analysts),” he said.

The class was open to students in any of the 16 school districts served by the Eastland-Fairfield.

Next year, Eastland-Fairfield is phasing out the cyber-security program at the Fairfield Career Center in Carroll so those who want to enroll must attend class at New Albany High School, said Ryan Gasser, Eastland-Fairfield spokesperson.

Also next year, the two-year program will welcome in a new class of juniors while the seniors complete their training, Gasser said.

Of the 18 juniors this year, Gasser said all but three are from other high schools - Pickerington Central, Gahanna Lincoln and Groveport-Madison.

Students of all computer-skill levels can register for the class, James said. Some will receive college credit for completing the course, he said.

"I'm into computers but I don't do that much with it," said Campbell Thompson, 17, who added he's taken honors-level coding classes.

"I just thought it was interesting and a lot of people were taking it," said Andrew Schockman, 17.

Still, he doesn't know if cyber security is for him.

"I would kind of like to stay in networking," Schockman said.

gseman@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekGary

This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Eastland-Fairfield program teaches students about cyber security at New Albany High School