Students at Fayetteville Tech find themselves on the front lines of 21st century warfare

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Fayetteville Technical Community College is training people to protect others from cyber attacks.

The FBI issued a new warning about the possibility of Russian cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure, placing some students in Fayetteville on the front lines in a way they didn't initially expect.

Christopher Barksdale is a retired veteran and former Army aircraft mechanic. Now, his new boot camp is inside a classroom at Fayetteville Technical Community College.

"It does kind of feel like you're on the front line but in a digital sense," Barksdale said. "You hear about digital attacks here and digital attacks there and it's almost like you're getting involved in a major conflict going on again."

Barksdale enrolled in a six-week program designed to teach students foundation in cyber security.

Instructor Darryl Carter specializes in taking students with zero experience and building them into finely-tuned experts.

"The same technology that they use to operate your car is the same technology that they are going to use to try and break into your computer at home," Carter explained. "So we have to (get) them scripting and we have to teach them software development and teach how programs are written and how to do that safely and effectively."