Pace University is starting a groundbreaking program to train students how to be "cyber-defenders."

The Pace students are learning how to help defend businesses around the globe. They are learning that something as innocent as a picture can be transformed into a dangerous weapon for hackers.

“I truly feel the next war we have in the future is going to be online. It’s not going to be with soldiers and guns, it's going to be online,” says Vicente Gomez, a freshman in the program.

Jonathan Hill, the dean of the program, says one of the worst attacks would be something that could affect the power grid to the point where street lights wouldn't work, air conditioning wouldn’t work in homes, and people couldn’t take money out of ATMs.

He says that the technology for this not only exists today, it’s already being deployed.

Hill says right now the protections are not in place to defend American businesses, but with the right education and a solid cybersecurity protocol, people can fight back.

Hill will be teaching business owners how to do that at a CyberStorm conference on campus next week, where the message will be that no one is immune to cybercrimes. The conference on Oct. 6 is being co-organized by the Business Council of Westchester.

News 12 has been told that graduates of the Pace program have gone on to work for a long list of government agencies, from the NSA to Homeland Security.