What I Learned in Rome Through Cybersecurity Study Abroad

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I have been to Italy before; multiple times, in fact. So when I decided to attend St. John’s University’s Cybersecurity in a Global Context program, the destination itself was not what gave me pause. What was different this time was that I was going without my wife. After years of traveling together, there is something oddly disorienting about navigating familiar streets alone. But that feeling of strangeness turned out to be exactly the point.

Arriving and Going “Dark”

After an orientation on Saturday evening, Sunday was a free day. I used it the way I usually do in a city I know well: I just walked. Rome is the kind of city that rewards wandering. There is no shortage of things to stumble upon, and taking it slow helped me settle in and shake off the long flight. By Monday morning, I was ready to work.

Monday kicked off with one of the more memorable labs I have had in this program: a dark-web exploration workshop. Using Linux VMs, we set up and navigated the Tor Browser, learned the basics of operational security, and got a firsthand look at what exists beyond the surface web. No purchasing or account creation was done. This was strictly for observational purposes…in case you were wondering.

We also dove into open-source intelligence (OSINT) that day. We covered tools such as Maltego, Spiderfoot, and Sherlock, and explored how investigators legally gather public data to build profiles, track movements, and support incident response.

After lunch, we headed out for a guided walking tour of Rome’s city center, starting at Piazza del Popolo. The afternoon was a welcome contrast to the morning’s screen time.

The Feds Show Up

Tuesday brought a compelling guest presentation from a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) veteran with more than 20 years in the field. She spoke about the bureau’s cyber operations, covering everything from business email compromise and ransomware to dark-web marketplace takedowns and interagency coordination.

She also walked us…

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