BY J. CRAIG ANDERSON, Government Technology
University of Southern Maine students are preparing to infect networks with malicious software, hack into hardware, secretly monitor user activity and lure Web surfers to predatory Internet sites. And they’ll even get credit for doing it.
That’s because it will all happen within a controlled setting as part of a new cybersecurity curriculum in which they will examine technical, legal and ethical issues surrounding the collection, sharing and theft of sensitive data. USM’s new Cyber Security Lab, which officially opens at the Portland campus Tuesday, will be a playground for hackers and other students seeking jobs in the booming high-tech industry. But the interdisciplinary curriculum developed in the lab will extend far beyond information technology into areas such as corporate communications, law and even philosophy.
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