About 40 people attended Rhodes State College’s first Cybersecurity Seminar Series on Tuesday.
The three-part series is hosted by the Texas A&M National Emergency Response and Rescue Center. They aim to bring awareness to the participants to prevent cyber disasters from happening.
"From an organizational standpoint, obviously you can have a stop in production, have issues with people getting paid, customers being able to pay, not having access to your records, not having power, not having water," said Antonio Watson, Cybersecurity Training Manager from Texas A&M. "It’s life-changing consequences to not having cybersecurity in place."
The program goes over the different types of cyberattacks. It also teaches not just how an individual can be safe online, but an organization and how communities can work together with cybersecurity.
"We’re just becoming increasingly dependent on the web and cyber," Doug Durliat said, director of manufacturing pathways at Rhodes State College. "Everything is being moved around through the web and you run the increasing risk of security breaches on account of it. And so, if we just have a safer workplace everyone’s going to benefit from it."
Watson said the series wraps up on Wednesday with participants hopefully having knowledge of a strategic plan for community cybersecurity and ways to prepare for attacks.
"Looking at what plans they have in place and coming up with plans to put in place to address these type of threats that are out here," Watson said. "Working with their community and realizing that they have to deal with things at the lowest level, which involves them dealing with everything in the community. And it starts with them getting to know their employees, training them."
For each session participants complete, they take an exam and can become certified recognized by Texas A&M and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Also, for the first time, Rhodes State is offering a cybersecurity certificate beginning this fall.
