Introduction

My name is Evan Kennedy, I am from Bucks County, PA, and I am a senior studying cybersecurity. I am an avid outdoorsman, I love fishing, running, biking, hiking, and canoeing. In my free time I love finding new spots to fish around State College, and I also enjoy tying my own flies for fly fishing. The reason I’m interested in Web Development is that I think it’s fundamental to understanding emerging cyber threats across the internet. During the summer I worked with Merck’s IT risk management team and part of my job was to monitor assets for potential vulnerabilities. One of things my mentor stressed while working with him over the summer is just how dangerous it was for any company asset to be internet facing. He told me that that are tons of ways hackers can create fake websites and use botnets to gain access to company devices through attacks like Cross-site scripting. He stressed to me that the internet is the most dynamic and complex threat environment in cybersecurity and one of the main ways cyber-criminals exploit vulnerable employees is through new and innovative ways of creating websites that can trick an average internet user into clicking on a link or attachment that can compromise their device. I think learning about web development will help me understand the fundamental building blocks of websites and how they work as well as how they can be exploited. Learning about web development not only allows me to develop valuable new skills I can apply in the future and will help me better understand how websites can be used for security purposes.