Meet Professor Bruce Tong - New Faculty, Cybersecurity

Katie:

Okay, so really quick, I'm just gonna have you introduce yourself. Just name, what's your job here at OU, and what do you do just within the McClure school.

Prof. Tong:

I’m Bruce Tong. I’m Assistant Professor of Instruction, meaning I teach and focus mostly on teaching within the Cybersecurity field.

Katie:

Awesome. So, the next question is just what is your background? Any prior jobs, education, or anything like that.

Prof. Tong:

Well, I received my bachelor’s degree here at OU, and then after that went into the military working with missiles. I worked at Dot-Com during the internet boom, the web boom in the 90s, went back to work locally for a small software shop here, and then switched to the University, where I developed software for a while, and then became the university's IT auditor for the last 12 years, and then switched to this. I had been teaching as an adjunct here for some number of years, four or five years prior to doing starting full time.

Katie:

Awesome. So, what do you like about working in the McClure school?

Prof. Tong:

It's more of a team atmosphere than other places. Like if you were in software development, I often liken that to being like a track team, where everybody runs their own event and then there's a team score at the end, but everybody still did their own event. Here, you know, your courses and your stuff has to fit into the larger picture, and it's a decision that's related to where the school is going to provide or put in synthesis, and what courses are going to be offered, and how degrees are going to be built, and all that sort of thing.

Katie:

Great. So, can you just like, define cybersecurity in basic terms for people who may not know too much about it.

Prof. Tong:

Yeah, cybersecurity is like the flashy buzzword version of what we would call information security. So that would be protecting information that is either valuable to an organization or to an individual, so that it doesn't fall into the hands of people you don't want to fall into. When we talk about individuals, we often talk more about privacy than we talk about information security. Drawing a distinction there, a business that handles information for people will have to worry about both the information security side they don't want all that information to be lost, but also the privacy side, where they want to handle that information in a way that's appropriate for what the person who the information represents sees as being appropriate.

Katie:

Can you talk just a little bit more on the importance of the cybersecurity field?

Prof. Tong:

Well, sure, I mean businesses that can't protect their own operations, they either can't keep their systems available, or they can't keep the data that they use, they can't keep its integrity strong. Then they have a hard time completing their missions. And if that's the case, those businesses are gonna have a hard time generating profit and staying in business. So, it becomes important from that angle. But if we talk about the value of the information to the individuals that they possess, then that can conceivably represent a person's identity, at least online or in certain systems. And if that information were to be disclosed, another person could conceivably assume that identity and then make life difficult for the individual. Not necessarily that they're trying to make life difficult for you, but they want the assets that are associated with that identity. So, bank accounts, money, that sort of thing.

Katie:

Yeah. Awesome. Are there just like, any basic things that we should personally do to keep our data safe?

Prof. Tong:

Oh yeah, lots. Perhaps the biggest one would be multi factor authentication, which is a fancy way of saying, when you when you go to log in, it should ask you to provide something that you know, like a password, but then also something else, like a number that comes from your phone that changes every 30 minutes. There’s something you have to have, like your phone or log in, and the app to log in. Or something that you are, which should be something like your fingerprints or your voice or your appearance, or any of that kind of stuff. So, by having multiple things required to log in, it's harder for someone who might have stolen your password to get in. That would be one thing. There’s probably a whole list of things.

Katie:

I was gonna say, there’s probably a bunch.

Prof. Tong:

Yeah, I mean, there’s also phishing. When someone sends you an email trying to deceive you into following a link or doing something. There could be multiple reasons why, or multiple angles to how they're trying to get at you there. So, they can be trying to trick you to install software on your local computer that then gives them some control over that computer. Or they could be just trying to get your account credentials by tricking you to log into a fake blog. Yeah, those are the biggies.

Katie:

Great. Is there anything that you like to do when you’re not at work? Any hobbies or pastimes?

Prof. Tong:

Definitely computer games.

Katie:

Yeah, that’s so valid. I’m the same way. So, why do you think students should come to the McClure school to study cybersecurity?

Prof. Tong:

Well, there are lots of places they could go to study it, but here the unique parts are going to be the integration with the networking team. A lot of cybersecurity schools only gloss over the networking part, but if you think about it, the cybersecurity efforts that the nation needs, they really come into focus because of the internet. Prior to the internet, you would have had “James Bond like” cybersecurity, where it was mostly physical Get in and use their computer and stuff. Well now you can do that over a network, and that really changes things. The other part, I think, is exciting, is that we integrate with the College of Business. So, you come out with a business minor. I don't think that's very common either. I mean, for most things, if you don't have a business application for it, you're probably not doing it right. And cybersecurity doesn't exist in a vacuum. That is, you have to protect something. So you're probably going to protect something related to a business, or to an individual, or something like that. So, you can't just study cybersecurity by itself. You have to put something with it.

Katie:

Awesome. Yeah. So, the last thing is just, really, anything else you'd like to add about yourself, about cybersecurity, or just anything in general.

Prof. Tong:

There's probably lots of choices that students have for schools to study cybersecurity, but you know, we've got a unique thing, one that, with computer science, is going into security related to hardware, which is not where most computer science departments go with cyber security. And Dr. Das next door, he's heavy into factory automation and that sort of stuff. And that's an often sort of ignored part of the IT industry. The traditional things like banks and businesses get lots of the attention and the protection of infrastructure, but electrical generation and factories and all that sort of stuff is also very important. And what I find fascinating about that is you don't have to necessarily be an IT, person wearing a suit and tie or collar and all that kind of stuff. Factories are inherently dirty locations, so you can use work boots and still be an IT professional.

Katie:

All right. Well, that's all I have. Thank you so much for doing this.

The McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies strives to offer the best academic programs in the IT (Information Technology), cybersecurity (opens in a new window), the game development and the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (opens in a new window) (VR/AR) industries. Our programs and certificates cover numerous aspects of the rapidly changing industries of information networking, cybersecurity operations (opens in a new window), data privacy, game development (opens in a new window), digital animation and the academic side of esports. (opens in a new window)