Exploradio

Like death and taxes, being hit by a computer virus seems inevitable. Cybercrime took a $100 billion bite out of the U.S. economy last year alone. It’s not just individuals who are hacked. Cities, schools and small businesses are increasingly targeted. In this week’s Exploradio, a look at local efforts to fight the onslaught by training the next generation of cyber warriors. Kelly Kendrick is IT director at Coventry Local Schools, a small district south of Akron. She says what began as an ordinary school day earlier this year began to go awry as the Internet slowed and files got jammed. “And then we realized there was a pattern,” says Kendrick. Soon it dawned on her that the school was under attack. “Within a 24 hour period we had to shut down the entire district,” she says. A malicious virus had not only taken over their computer network, it had disabled the heating and cooling systems and wiped out phone service. Luckily, she says they were able to stop the virus before it put a lock