Los hackers exist in Yucatan for several years, but not all of them are bad as people think, there are also ethical and “white hat” ones, he said. Angel Pech Checoordinator of the Cybersecurity Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Yucatan (UPY).
This is a career that was created thanks to specialists and teachers who trained in Europe.
He highlighted to Diary that, the perception of term “hacker” is often misunderstood.
“In Yucatán, there have always been hackers, but the term is mistakenly associated with criminal activities. Ethical hackers, for example, are professionals who look for vulnerabilities to improve security, not harm it.”.
He clarified this by considering that this change in the narrative is essential to recognize the positive work carried out by many experts in the field.
Cybersecurity training
Interviewed in this regard, Pech Che reported that many specialists and well-trained teachers were involved in the entire process for the training of cybersecurity engineering, in order to generate a knowledge base at an educational level.
“What was previously cybersecurity issues for certain companies or institutions, what the UPY did is create an educational ecosystem from its subjects and the training part, which entailed during these almost three years of learning and training, but one of the things that the university has is that the student community demonstrates that talent”, he stated.
He admitted that in the organization of the race the hacker made the decision of which subjects were entered and discarded.
“It was actually made by a hacker, but we will leave out his name”, he stressed.
“It also came from the foundation that comes from a hacker specialist, from the hacker community, and something I want to make known is that hackers have always existed in Yucatan, who live in anonymity.
I even have hacker colleagues who come to the university to give us talks and workshops, little by little they are making themselves known.”.
The interviewee considered that perhaps these types of experts still lack recognition, since the term hacker is sometimes misused.
“It is thought that the hacker is the bad guy, but in reality he is not a bad person, he is a person with a lot of knowledge and ‘expertise’ (skill) in the field, capable of eliminating certain issues that may be more complex for others, and for them it is easy.”he quoted.
The coordinator commented that, precisely in this first generation of cyber protection engineers at UPY, who will graduate next year, two or three potential hackers have already been detected.
“Now at the university I couldn’t give an exact number in the sense of how many are going to leave, but we have identified two or three very good ones from the first generation of cybersecurity, and I think they only need their challenge to be recognized,” he added.
He anticipated that it was already surveyed that future graduates could receive the title of “Ethical Hackers”, who will be in charge of searching for vulnerabilities and truly protecting the infrastructure.
He specified that anyone who uses technology to harm a person is considered a cybercriminal, although in the media it is more widely reported that “he was a hacker, because since the 90s he was considered the bad guy.”
“But no, I have always said that the media should help us to make it known that hackers are really good people and we are here to make society aware of all those vulnerabilities and dangers that exist in cyberspace.“.
“That is really our mission in that sense, that really all people know that part”, he pointed out.
In his opinion, it is time to say that in Yucatan There are hackers and this term is earned.
“You have to earn it, what you have done must be recognized, and sometimes you set very big challenges to achieve it so that the community recognizes it.”.
The coordinator insisted that these hackers do no harm, their intention is to demonstrate that there is an error in the platform and find solutions, and already from this first generation, there are very expert people, students who can already earn that merit, before the community.
Do you consider yourself a hacker?Pech Che was asked, who only responded: “You said it.”
Differences between hackers: criminals and ethical ones?
When elaborating on this topic, which he considered interesting, he mentioned that the hacker can be local and dispersed throughout the world.
He emphasized that the important thing is to really know if it is good or bad, because it gives them terms such as “white, black or red hat.”
He explained that the difference is that each of them has a context, one does it with the meaning of helping and the other with the meaning of harming. Red is a hacker who looks for vulnerabilities and makes them known to you, he is ethical, just like white. On the contrary, black is negative.
When going into details, he pointed out that, “there are some who are even managers, they are crackers.”
“The cracker is the one that I would call that is not the most dangerous, but the one that is most evil buys systems. They have one objective, financial remuneration, he is the one who pirates software and uses everything for himself to generate his own resources, he is like a pirate”.
“He is the one who is always stealing and making all his knowledge, but many times there are communities that to a certain extent live in anonymity, you only know them by the name that they themselves attribute to them; It’s their domain and what they do is always live that way.”.
He noted that “you can treat them without meeting them for several years and even never see them in person.”
“You can only have a friendship with him and you know that he exists, that he is a hacker, but you never get to know him, you can even have a nice friendship, because he seeks to share knowledge”.
“In the community, if someone manages to create a tool that allows hacking a system, what we do is share it in that sense. If I manage to make a tool, it is shared with them, and they too, that’s how it works. In this way, we do not seek to harm, we try to really make known the dangers that exist in cyberspace,” he added.
Children in danger
He highlighted the importance of carrying the message that cybersecurity is an issue that must be known in the family aspect, since as soon as a child has a device at hand that is connected to the Internet, he or she is in danger.
“We want them to carry the message, to be aware of children who use mobile devices, and parents to keep in mind that they put them at risk and in danger; We have to teach the good use of this technology, because technology is here to stay”.
He stressed the importance of understanding that “we are going to be in charge of ensuring that our children or the people who really use this technology do it well, and are not part of a scam or victim of more than one citizen, everyone must learn, not just a few, but all of them.”