SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio is not only known as Military City, USA, but also Cyber City USA by many. As KENS5's Jeremy Baker reports, one cyber school that is only a few months old is already receiving thousands of applicants for their course where students get paid to learn.
It is a cybersecurity program called NukuDo. And in just 70 days you could be hacking into real-world scenario corporate networks, with a guaranteed paying job, and be paid for the program the entire time you're learning.
Meet Charine Williams and Colt Garrett. Both are currently enrolled in Nukudo's latest class taking place right now. Williams was aiming for medical school but just lost the desire. She told us, "I took a career quiz and like I got some results for like it cybersecurity. So I was like, well maybe I'll look into this."
She says for her, this just seemed better than college. Williams added, "With college, like you are gaining knowledge. I feel like it is not really practical knowledge. But with here, like you're learning and you're also applying it at the same time."
The program lasts four to six months, depending on the certification required by different employers. Students are paid $4,000 a month while they are in training, and that includes a 401K match, and full benefits including medical, vision, and dental insurance. And when you graduate you are guaranteed a job in the cybersecurity field paying at least $66,000 for a three year commitment! And you need no experience! Michael Blair, Nukudo's Managing Director said, "Our sister company in Singapore, as well as this first class in the US, had about 70% of the people we hired have no IT background whatsoever."
"A lot of this is more it's technology based. It's cybersecurity. But there's a lot from the intelligence side that transitions over very well," said Colt Garrett who is an Air Force Veteran, where he worked as an intelligence analyst. He enjoys the problem solving aspect of the field. He added, "Being able to think outside the box and being comfortable in uncomfortable situations that you get stuck on a problem and you can't quite navigate or find your way through."
According to Forbes there were 2,365 cyberattacks in 2023 with more than 343 million victims. Each data breach costs an average of $4.45 million. 94 percent of businesses and organizations have reported email security incidents, the most common vector for malware.
Blair says these jobs are needed with a deficit of 500,000 cyber security experts nationwide. He told us, "If there's a state or nation level attack there's going to be certain things that a human needs to know how to do. And we are making sure that our people who are going to then go work at those businesses know how to do those things."