To prepare students for future IT jobs, seniors in Cybersecurity I are hacking a fake criminal for a court case. 

“It was important that you all had the tools because this is a problem for your generation,” Cybersecurity teacher Wayne Davies said. “I knew there’d be complications since I am giving you a tool and a weapon, but I knew you all would need this for the future. It was best to teach the seniors early.”

Students were given a case of two hackers attacking fake companies through the internet. They were asked questions about the case to answer and lead them through the assignment. 

“When it comes to the cyber puzzles, it’s important to understand how to decipher internet traffic in our world as people try to hack and steal information from others,” senior Samer Youssouf said. “I have been able to learn how to identify and document the people involved and in these events and collect information to use in the future.”

After students discovered the crimes, they were required to create a lab report. The lab report had to be a step-by-step explanation of what they had done, so in the future, their clients could potentially use it to hack the same files again. 

“The court case was hard to write because we had to write it the class after we hacked,” senior Keegan Hall said. “I had to try and remember every step and it was really stressful because I needed to be really in-depth, but it was extremely time consuming.” 

After students finish hacking the files, they will continue learning about safety on the web. 

“I was pleasantly surprised with how everyone did,” Davies said. “I thought it’d be more complicated, but everyone seemed to understand the data they were hacking. I was also surprised that the seniors could explain their steps in a simple enough way that others could also understand.”