Q&A with Josh Larkins, 2011 master's graduate in computer forensics at UAB, now working at a major U.S. bank
What are you doing now? I work on the Abuse team at the bank. The group used to do a lot of phishing site takedowns, but they brought me on to develop more aggressive strategies to actually find the people responsible for creating those phishing sites in the first place.
How will you do that? I really can’t reveal that information at this point.
Fair enough. How many other people at the bank are doing what you do? This is a new approach. I’m a member of a six-person team. And three of us went to UAB.
How did your experience at UAB prepare you for that job? For the last year I was at UAB I was the project manager for PhishIntel and helped develop several new features. Now that I’m at the bank, I use the site daily to help track down cybercriminals.
Did you always know you wanted to be a full-time cybercrimefighter? I was a math major as an undergraduate. As I got close to graduation I was looking at military options that really wouldn’t have used my training. I didn’t have a good plan. But then I heard about the master’s program at UAB and it clicked for me. I really had a great experience.