Learning To Hack Just Got Easier

10/03/2005

(ContentDesk) October 3, 2005 -- Now you can learn hacking in the comfort of your own home. Training company Learn Security Online (LSO) teaches hacking techniques online at a low cost. LSO teaches computer security with interactive simulators, hacking games, and security challenges that require students to break into real servers. The website address is: https://www.learnsecurityonline.com/. The obvious focus is hands-on hacking, but the site also helps to prepare students for industry standard security certifications such as the Comptia Security+, the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

"We try to use as many interactive training methods as we can. We always focus on getting the student to really see what hacking is, and honestly games are just a great way for students to get the repetition that they need to be good at it", says company founder Joe McCray. When asked what he thought of the comment made by Gene Spafford, professor of computer sciences at Purdue University. "Criminal justice programs don't have students steal cars or commit rape to understand what motivates criminals or how to stop them." Joe replied, "Yup, he's right. But those criminal justice majors eventually leave college and go to the real world.

Then it's just experience, and help from other professionals in the field that teach them the ropes of investigating and prosecuting those types of crimes. Nearly 1/3rd of LSO customers are college students, and I take a lot of pride in knowing that they'll be better prepared to work in the field because of LSO."Good hackers are strong in several operating systems such as Unix, Linux, and Windows. They [hackers can program in several programming languages, and understand advanced computer networking. Joe McCray says this is what makes stopping hackers so difficult and why LSO focuses so heavily on teaching each of these competencies and ensuring that students get hands-on experience. Joe went to say that hackers already know how to do this stuff, they teach each other, and they practice on real servers.

It's the IT professionals in the field that need this information to protect their networks. Their networks have our banking information, our medical information, our credit history, and company proprietary information. "I don't want someone that doesn't even know basic attacks safeguarding that kind of information. I know of an incident where an attacker had been on a system for a few years without the company knowing it. The attacker had multiple backdoors on the system and was even applying security patches to it to keep other hackers out of it" - Joe McCra.