MILWAUKEE — At the summit, I spoke with Ryan Atkinson, an MSOE student and technology scholarship winner, who emphasized the value of real-world experience gained through events like this.
"I think it helps everyone because this field, anything related, is so rapidly changing!" Atkinson explained, eager to explore career opportunities in the rapidly growing industry.
Tina Chang, CEO of SysLogic Inc., the major sponsor of the summit, shared the event's primary goal of educating the public on the evolving cybersecurity threats we all face.
"The summit is here to help people get educated on what we can do about it, what the threats are, who is doing it, and how we take precautions to be preventative," Chang explained. In today's world, where cyberattacks seem to be a daily occurrence, her message was clear:
“It’s not if you get hacked, it’s when you get hacked.”
The summit also provided a platform to showcase the booming job market in the cybersecurity field. "We have 700,000 open jobs in the U.S. alone!" Chang exclaimed, highlighting the massive opportunities for students like Ryan, who are preparing for careers in this multibillion-dollar industry.
One of the event's standout features was the "Hacker Village," where local tech enthusiasts got hands-on experience hacking into circuit boards to understand how malicious actors steal data. MSOE student Ben Jankowski demonstrated a tool called a Wi-Fi Marauder, explaining its purpose: "They’re gonna flash what they call a Wi-Fi Marauder on it, which is pretty much a tool that allows you to test the security of a Wi-Fi network by attacking it."
Watch: Cyber Security Summit unites experts and students to fight digital threats
Chang emphasized that tackling cybersecurity is a collective effort. "Cybersecurity cannot be done alone or by a single organization since we are all so connected either by people or by our systems," she noted.
As the summit drew to a close, Ryan Atkinson shared his takeaway from the event: “We need to have these conversations with the experts and big companies to figure out what the current state of cybersecurity is.”
Cybersecurity is no longer just a concern for tech professionals—it affects every single person, and events like this summit are crucial in preparing future experts to meet the challenges ahead.
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