Holly Ober reports:
Fatemah Alharbi breaks things in order to learn how to fix them. Not just any old things. Computer operating systems, to be exact, and she conducted research that earned public gratitude from Apple.
If she doesn’t look like a hacker that’s because she isn’t, really. She’s a doctoral candidate in computer science at the University of California, Riverside with an interest in computer and network security that puts her squarely on the good side, trying to protect your passwords, information, and money.
Her interest in security set Alharbi — a first-generation student who grew up in Saudia Arabia — on an unexpected path to becoming a white hat hacker.
“I hadn’t thought about doing any hacking stuff. I always thought about how I can defeat this attack, how I can overcome this vulnerability,” she said.
Read more on UC Riverside News.