By Eric Stock
NORMAL – Cybersecurity has been a major issue in the presidential campaign. Now, cybersecurity will be a major at Illinois State University starting next year.
The recent document dump by WikiLeaks is a prominent reminder of the need for to protect online data from being hacked.
Glen Sagers, assistant director of the school of IT, said there aren’t enough cybersecurity workers out there to meet demand.
“There’s a lot of information out there and anytime there’s information that can be bought and sold, someone’s going to go after it,” Sagers said. “Nobody steal’s banks anymore, we steal the money electronically somehow.”
ISU had already offered a concentration in cybersecurity but decided to add the major after several companies expressed interest in having an expanded curriculum.
“We thought it needed more depth,” Sager said, adding that State Farm and other technology companies recommended ISU add the major to better prepare graduates for the most specialized discipline.
The new major will be available next fall.
Sagers says his email inbox has been ‘burning up’ with requests from students wanting to switch to the new major.
“We’ve made it really easy for our existing sequence students to just take those extra couple of classes,” Sagers said.
Eric Stock can be reached at eric.stock@cumulus.com.
