From Special Ed Educator to Hacker: Course Hero Leader to Speak at Prestigious Women's Computing Conference
Rachel Tobac, Associate User Experience Researcher at Course Hero, to present on social engineering at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Course Hero, an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed, announced today that Course Hero Associate User Experience Researcher, Rachel Tobac, will present her real life experiences as a hacker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference next month.
The conference – which takes place October 4-6 – is the world's largest gathering of women technologists and is produced by the Anita Borg Institute in partnership with the Association of Computing Machinery. Tobac is one of many presenters, speaking among the likes of Melinda Gates and top female leaders from companies such as Google, IBM and GoldieBlox. Tobac will be attending the conference with 10 other women from Course Hero, which is also a sponsor of the conference.
Tobac engages in "white hat hacking" – hacking for the benefit of people, to keep them and their data safe – and will outline the dangers of "social engineering," or the practice of influencing a person to share personal or confidential information. Her presentation, "Hacking-the-Wetware: How One Noob Compromised a Cybersecurity Company with Social Engineering," will take place at 1:50 p.m. on October 4. Tobac will illustrate how social engineering is one of the most severe threats to a person's and company's security and privacy because anyone can do it – even someone who is new to the field or seemingly innocuous, like Tobac herself.
"This is something I have learned through experience. I started my career as a special education teacher and I found myself winning at the world's largest hacking conference, DEF CON," Tobac said. "My story is a perfect example of the vulnerability companies face. Even though my day job at Course Hero involves helping 20 million students and educators, I was still able to use white hat hacking skills to infiltrate a cyber security company."
At the DEF CON competition, Tobac used social engineering methods to infiltrate a company in 20 minutes while sitting in a glass booth in front of 400 people. She called a large cyber security company, posing as a new employee who needed security information to ensure her protective parents that the office was safe. During her Grace Hopper presentation, Tobac will share the methods social engineers use to mine data and exploit behaviors in those they are targeting. Additionally, she will touch on how women are uniquely skilled as social engineers due to their perceived skill sets, empathy and kindness.
Tobac hopes the presentation will help attendees teach their employees social media best practices to keep personal and company data safe.
Course Hero CEO and co-founder, Andrew Grauer, said he is proud of Tobac's leadership in social engineering and how her security knowledge helps the company.
"We know that personal passions often bring tangible benefits for businesses," Grauer said. "We're proud to have Rachel on our team because leaders like her make Course Hero stronger and more secure. Not only is Rachel an insightful security expert, she's also an incisive researcher helping to shape the company's product. We're thrilled that she has the opportunity to be at the event to teach some of the best minds in computing about her security expertise. Course Hero is proud to be part of an event that supports the research and career interests of women in computing."
For more information on the presentation and conference, visit https://ghc.anitaborg.org/.
About Course Hero | Master Your Classes™
Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed. Fueled by a passionate community of over 20 million students and educators who share their course-specific knowledge and educational resources, Course Hero offers the biggest and best library of study documents, expert tutors, customizable flashcards, and course advice. Download the Course Hero app for iPhone or Android. Connect with Course Hero on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
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