Retired Navy Capt. Paul Tortora always starts his lectures at the Naval Academy the same way: Google "cyber news" in the past 24 hours and analyze. One day it could be a cybersecurity story about a sheriff's department paying ransom to hackers who locked its computers. Another, experts realizing even pacemakers could be hacked. These real cyber and hacking events have become an integral part of cyber operations classes at the academy. "Next time you see a cyber article, there's a good chance one of our 30 classes will be talking about it that day," says Tortora, director of the academy's Center for Cyber Security Studies. From the Democratic National Committee's hacked e-mails to ISIS recruiting techniques, current events help midshipmen understand the technical and strategic components of cybersecurity.
