Students by day, hackers by night
Julian Cohen, 22, a senior at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and a founder of a weekly “Hack Night,” looks at his computer as a recorded lecture plays in the Information Systems and Internet Security lab at the university Wednesday.
NEW YORK – Every week, a group of teenagers and 20-somethings dressed in hoodies gets together in a tiny room on a college campus and plug in their laptops. They turn up pulsing electronic funk music, order pizza and begin furiously hacking into computer networks.
But they’re not shadowy criminals: They’re students training to become “white-hat” hackers, experts to help business and government agencies protect their data from cyberattacks that have become an almost daily occurrence.
“It’s the new espionage. Spies operate from behind keyboards now,” said Evan Jensen, a senior at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and one of the leaders of the Hack Night events where about two dozen students hone their hacking skills.
Have your home or work computers ever been hacked?
