Utica College Offers Students Professional Cryptocurrency Crimes Training through Partnership with Leading Crypocurrency Intelligence Company CipherTrace

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Utica College Offers Students Professional Cryptocurrency Crimes Training through Partnership with Leading Crypocurrency Intelligence Company CipherTrace

Several bitcoin representations laying on pattern of circuitry.

Upon completion, UC Financial Crime students will be able to lead investigations into crimes using cryptocurrencies for government agencies, other organizations

Utica College, a recognized traiblazer in cybersecurity and fraud/financial crime education, recently announced its partnership with CipherTrace, a leading cryptocurrency intelligence company, to provide financial crimes and money laundering investigation training.

Utica College is only the second college/university in the United States to be invited to participate in CipherTrace Defenders League, a program that trains cryptocurrency analysts from colleges and universities around the world to trace funds lost through cryptocurrency fraud and theft.

Through the college’s partnership, undergraduate and graduate students had the opportunity to enroll in an eight-hour training course to become a CipherTrace Certified Examiner (CTCE), an industry-recognized designation.

“Once students have completed the training, they were able to work on a live, actual CipherTrace case to locate cryptocurrency assets that may have been stolen. CipherTrace receives many requests from individual victims of scams and other fraudulent activity to try to recover the funds,” said Stephanie Nesbitt, dean of the school of Business and Justice Studies. “The students, once certified, are responsible for completing their investigations, supervised and verified by CipherTrace, and writing the case report.”

“We chose to work with Utica College because of the school’s reputation for having an outstanding financial crime studies program. The school is renowned for providing anti-money laundering and financial crime talent to the world’s financial capital, New York City, and look forward to incorporating students from Utica’s cybersecurity program, as well,” said Pamela Clegg, director of Financial Investigations and Education for CipherTrace.

Suzanne Lynch, professor of practice in economic crime, arranged for two CipherTrace sessions at the college this past fall, as well as a series of dedicated two- and three-hour training sessions. So far, more than 70 cybersecurity and economic crime students have completed the training, Lynch said.

Lynch has extensive experience in risk analysis, fraud control implementation and investigations in the financial services industry. Formerly vice president for security and risk management at MasterCard Worldwide, she has held fraud management positions at Goldman Sachs and Comerica Bank. At MasterCard, one of her many diverse responsibilities included conducting fraud operations reviews on banks to determine the levels of existing fraud controls, global fraud investigations and third party processing system risk controls.

“CipherTrace is an industry leader in cryptocurrency investigations and asset tracing,” Lynch said, “and Utica College is pleased and honored to be able to offer this training to our students.”

“Our first student to complete the training and pass the certification exam was a female graduate cyber student,” Nesbitt said. “This is notable given that cyber and financial crime professions and academic programs remain predominantly male.”

The college’s fraud and financial crime investigation program, formerly known as economic crime, was the first of its kind in the country.