Cybersecurity risks extend to state defenses, Internet of Things devices and infrastructure. The average person has between five and seven connected devices, so the ratio of attacks is growing and the careers associated with cyberdefense are also growing.
To that end, two state leaders addressed a youth cybersecurity bootcamp Saturday at the Code for Grove held in Elk Grove — state CIO Amy Tong and U.S. Rep. Ami Bera.
"Code for Grove is a two-day cybersecurity bootcamp intended to educate and give you a glimpse into the ever changing cybersecurity landscape," Cruz Nieto, portfolio manager for the California Department of Technology's Office of Innovation, said in opening remarks.
Code for Grove was planned by CDT systems software specialist Navneet Grewal, who founded Yellow Circle, an online education platform for coding. Educators included Intel employees and state workers.
Bera, in his comments to the 13- to 18-year-old coders, said: "If you think about the cyberattacks that happen every day, not just on our country but on our companies and on individuals, it is a constant threat. And if we think of the jobs of the future, what is incredibly important, it is how do we keep our country safe and secure, how do we keep our companies safe and secure and protect that next generation?"
Grewal built Yellow Circle to create learning opportunities for his son and kids like him, he said.
"You guys are the future," Bera said, "and there is nothing more important than making sure you guys have skills if you want to go off to college ... or if you want to go straight into the workforce with Intel or the state of California or the federal government," Bera said.
Tong impressed on the students the importance of cybersecurity.
"Cybersecurity is no longer something that is fictional, something we see on TV. It's actually happening every single day," Tong said.
Tong said cyberattacks from other nations and from private hackers accounted for some of the millions of attacks that the state data center undergoes every minute.
"Anything that has a computer brain in it has the potential — I'm only going to use the word 'potential' — of being impacted by bad actors," Tong said. "This comes back to why cybersecurity is so important, why cybersecurity is looking to all of you, the up-and-coming generation, to protect the assets, because it does impact you on a daily basis."
Global cybersecurity will cost $2 trillion in 2019, according to an FBI agent who also addressed the students. (He did not want to be identified by name.)
"Anything that you put information into, that can be potentially compromised," the agent said. "Cybersecurity is going to be more and more important as we get into the next decade or so. We need people like you. We need network defenders."
