Head of NC’s Department of Information Technology stops by RSHS

ROCKINGHAM — Jim Weaver, Secretary & State Chief Information Officer for the N.C. Department of Information Technology, stopped by Richmond Senior High Friday to morning to deliver two cartloads of school supplies and share some information with students.

Career Development Coordinator Jason Perakis and RSHS Principal Jim Butler led Weaver and his staff to a few computer and technology classrooms. As secretary and state chief information officer, Weaver leads the agency responsible for strategic IT planning and the procurement and delivery of IT services and solutions as well as cybersecurity and efforts to expand broadband access and affordability across North Carolina.

Weaver first stopped in Jesse Futrell’s Computer Science 2 classroom for a discussion about technology.

“You know there’s over 21,000 jobs today in North Carolina alone available for cybersecurity?” Weaver asked. “It’s probably the highest paying IT jobs…we have apprenticeship internship programs that we’ll make sure your school gets information about.”

Weaver asked students if they were interested in careers in data analytics, cybersecurity, IT, software development or GIS. He highlighted the importance of a young workforce in these emerging fields, as well as the increased risk that the state and nation is facing in cybersecurity.

“North Carolina alone, we’ve seen over 70 significant cyber attacks in the last four years,” Weaver said. “…We’re basically thwarting somewhere between 10 to 13 billion events on a weekly basis.” He asked students to guess who the top five cyber threat actors are for the US — students correctly guessed Iraq, China and Russia, while Weaver informed them of the last two — North Korea and Israel.

CDIT reported nine cyber incidents in the 2022-23 academic year that involved education systems — an increase from the last two years. There were 29 cyber incidents in North Carolina between 2019-2023.

Earlier in August, this growing threat nationwide received a national spotlight when the Biden administration encouraged schools to start cyber drills.

When Weaver and Perakis asked the students if their devices or accounts have ever been hacked, about half of the hands in the room went up.

“You’d be surprised how much information you can glean from a Facebook or Instagram account,” Weaver asked, before touching on a topic every student was familiar with — TikTok.

“There’s no protection of your data when your leveraging TikTok,” Weaver said about the China-based company. “No US court has jurisdiction over it, so their not subject to US privacy laws.”

Weaver said that China law permits the government to take data from any China-based company, adding that there’s unfettered access to all data posted on the app. That’s why North Carolina banned access to TikTok for all state-owned devices and computers earlier this year.

“Think about all the information that you’re making publicly available,” Weaver advised. “Please tell me your passwords not 1234. Uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters — Make it complex and anywhere from 10-16 digits. An eight digit password can get cracked within hours with the algorithms that are out there today.”

Weaver added that China leads the world in stolen American data, and elaborated on the ways that threat actors can hack their way into computer systems.

“For you to be successful, no matter what career field you end up choosing, there’s going to be a component of information technology that you’re going to have to learn how to use and consume,” Weaver concluded. “Please, take these classes seriously that you’re in. Get your credit, do the best you can. It is building you for success in the future.”