University of Phoenix Lead Cybersecurity Faculty, Stephanie Benoit-Kurtz was a featured speaker on the Wall Street Journal Pro Cybersecurity webinar series for Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The webinar, held on October 21, 2021, offered key insights and takeaways for businesses on defending against denial of service attacks, those aimed at knocking websites and services offline.
Participating in a panel, Benoit-Kurtz discussed industries most likely to be targeted, how organizations can assess the likelihood of being attacked, the likely damage and disruption resulting from an attack, the steps businesses can take to mitigate the risk of disruption and how attacks might evolve to disrupt new technologies.
“The threat landscape over the past 18 months has significantly changed in complexity and frequency of attacks,” said Benoit-Kurtz. “Today, very organized and sophisticated teams use automated tools and bots to scour networks looking for a way to hack in through a variety of methods that range from social engineering and email to brute force attacks at the network. Organizations are getting hit millions of times a day, and all it takes is one careless user or one unpatched vulnerability to start the cascading events of a ransomware attack and/or the exfiltration of customer data that will later be monetized either through a ransom threat or for sale on the Dark Web.”
Benoit-Kurtz started on the IT and cybersecurity path in the 1980s, when she was a 25-year-old single mother with 150 college credits, but no degree. In order to enhance her career, she went back to school at University of Phoenix where she finished her bachelor’s degree, and later completed her graduate work. Benoit-Kurtz has now spent three decades within the IT industry, working for a variety of large and small organizations and as a consultant. Today, she serves as the Lead Cybersecurity Faculty at University of Phoenix and Principal Security Consultant at Trace3.
Learn more about the webinar and view it at: https://cyberwebinars.wsj.com/.
About University of Phoenix
University of Phoenix is continually innovating to help working adults enhance their careers in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses, interactive learning, and Career Services for Life® help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. For more information, visit phoenix.edu.
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