This summer, Horizon Academic is proud to launch our new cybersecurity course, Data Science Approaches to Internet Security. Taught exclusively during the summer terms by Georgia Tech instructor, Dr. Maria Konte, this course trains high school students from the fundamental pillars of how computers interact to cutting-edge machine learning strategies that identify security breaches. This course enables high school students to delve into an interdisciplinary study of internet and informations technology using real datasets while welcoming both students who wish to pursue a hands-on coding track as well as students with no prior coding experience who wish to focus on public policy regarding cybersecurity. 

Cybersecurity is a field that is expanding nearly at the same rate as technology itself. With the internet becoming part and parcel of our daily lived realities, internet attacks have grown in quantity and quality (i.e. complexity) — leaving significant repercussions by disconnecting entire networks, disrupting food and gas supply chains, and leaking sensitive financial and personal information. Unsurprisingly, the havoc brought on by cyberattacks has led to a surge in demand for experts who are all too familiar with all the ins-and-outs of cybersecurity.

Complementing the digital age, the Data Science Approaches to Internet Security course aims to first provide students with the basic background knowledge necessary to undertake more advanced topics in succeeding weeks, namely how computers communicate as well as how they work as parts of the internet. Students will then learn about the indications that a device (computers, servers, handheld devices, and IoT / household devices connected to the internet) is compromised or has atypical behavior. Students will have the opportunity to wield machine learning approaches to detect compromised machines through network traffic, denial of service attacks, and hijacking attacks. Alternatively, students have the option to opt-in the non-coding track which investigates the regulatory aspect of cybersecurity. Irrespective of the methodology students engage in, in this course students can expect to build skills in any or all of the following foci: data science, network traffic analysis, internet policies, machine learning, etc.

Possible projects may explore the following topics or questions:

1. How does the Internet work? 

2. How to detect compromised devices? 

3. Hands-on Internet Security: Network Traffic Analysis 

4. What could bring the Internet down? Introduction to Security and overview of Internet

Attacks. 

5. Hands-on Internet Security: Denial of Service Attacks (DoS) 

6. Hands-on Internet Security: Hijacking attacks 

7. How global physical and political events impact the Internet?

8. Non-Coding Track: Public Policies and the Internet

Learn more about the application process here!