It started in high school with him taking classes in a criminal justice and forensics academy at Colerain High School in Cincinnati. He was interested in digital forensics and had a chance meeting with a ransomware negotiator.
These professionals use their technical IT knowledge along with good insight to protect organizations from cybercriminals by minimizing damage, reducing ransom demands, safely recovering encrypted data and stopping the release of stolen information.
“I learned more about the cybersecurity side of forensics, which I think is very cool and very important,” says Bernhardt, a fourth-year cybersecurity student in the School of Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati. “It sounds cheesy to say, ‘I want to better the world and make people feel more secure,’ but there are a lot of bad actors out there and it is only gonna get exponentially worse.”
Securing private information for individuals and companies is a necessity. And Bernhardt is continuing to sharpen his digital detecting skills with co-op experiences at Kroger Co. and U.S. Bank. He is one of more than 9,600 UC co-op students who gain valuable real-world work experience with partners across industry, government, nonprofit organizations and the university while continuing to make progress toward their degrees.
At Kroger, Bernhardt was a financial auditor intern during three co-op experiences with the company. He gathered data for financial audits, corrected security flaws to protect sensitive files and ensured that network firewalls worked properly.
His work involved using automated code to find, format and document user permissions and system logs for mandated audits and also documenting how apps and automated scripts are used in a centralized database to improve security and restrict access to company information.
