Reuben 9 Years Old Student, CEO, and Hacker

As a 9 year old student who attends a Texas public charter school, Harmony School of Science during the day, Reuben Paul is also a cyber-security researcher. A hacker.

There isn’t anything malicious when it comes to Reuben Paul’s intentions however. The young tech-whiz is the definition of an ethical hacker.

CEO. Founder. Master in Kung-fu.

The young Texan native is the founder and CEO of Prudent Games, an informative, educational gaming company that’s geared to teach its gamers as they play. They are predominantly children-friendly applications such as:

  • Cracker Proof, a game which teaches kids in a fun, engaging manner about the importance of strong passwords online. The game educates children about the how and why to building and creating strong passwords online.
  • Catch Me if You Can is another game that teaches kids about brute-force attacks and how they come about, as well as educating the young gamers about how to defend against such cyber-attacks.

“With all the data breaches, cyberbullying and other kinds of attacks happening on the Internet, it’s important for us to teach kids and educate them on the dangers so they can protect themselves,” said Reuben.

The Ultimate Goal. At least Until High School Comes Around.

Paul’s ultimate vision is to encourage and foster a culture in schools worldwide to establish and implement standard curriculum that involves cyber security. He notes that school-children everywhere need to learn about the importance of cyber security and be equipped to eliminate the dangers that come from it.

With the advent of technology into everyone’s everyday lives, Paul argues that kids are exposed to technology at an early age due to access in playing with phones and tablet apps, putting their privacy at risk. Due to this, he emphasizes the importance of learning about the fundamentals of cyber security in today’s ever changing internet landscape, specifically noting passwords should be well crafted.

“We live in a world with new technology and millions of apps which kids like me use. We need to teach kids to use it carefully and securely, because, right now schools don’t teach it,” Reuben said.

In order to share his vision and thoughts, Reuben applied to DerbyCon, a popular and renowned hacker conference. Soon enough, Dave Kennedy, the founder of DerbyCon had Reuben on the phone, eager to accept the young hacker onto the panel on DerbyCon.

Mano Paul, Rebuen’s father, CEO of SecuRisk Solutions and a cyber-security researcher himself realized his young son’s potential upon seeing Reuben’s passion for computers and cyber-security at an early age.

“I remember when he was five, him using words like firewall and I was totally surprised that a kid could understand and pick up those things,” Mano Paul said.

“At age five I introduced him to Scratch, and then by six we were looking at real world programming and security concepts,” he added.

The world can live in hope and awe of young Reuben. There’s plenty to look forward to from the young tech entrepreneur as Reuben will be keynoting at the HITB Haxpo in Amsterdam during May 26-29.