About Byron Acohido
Statement of purpose:
This web site is a venue for productive discussions and fresh thinking about how to make the Internet safer. It’s stated purpose, very simply, is to help connect the dots and frame the right questions, and thereby increase public awareness, an essential ingredient to the solution.
Biography:
Born and raised in Wahiawa, Hawaii, Byron Acohido is a 1973 graduate of Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu and has been a working journalist since graduating from the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1977. He currently covers technology topics for USA TODAY. While at the Seattle Times earlier in his career, he was awarded the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting and 11 other national awards for stories linking a dangerous defect in the rudder controls of Boeing 737 jetliners to a string of crashes that killed hundreds of people.
Since joining USA TODAY in December 2000, Acohido has led the newspaper’s cutting-edge coverage of Internet security and cyber crime. The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants awarded he and co-author Jon Swartz the 2008 Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards for their newspaper stories about data theft and identity fraud. The Society of American Business Editors and Writers awarded Acohido and Swartz the 2005 Best in Business Award for Projects by large newspapers; and they were named finalists for the prestigious 2005 and 2006 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.
From late 2006 through early 2007, Acohido took a sabbatical to focus on deeper reporting and writing of Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks And Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity, co-authored with Swartz. The book, published in 2008, has been hailed by technologists, journalists and lawmakers as a must-read primer on the underpinnings of cybercrime.
Based in Seattle, Acohido has conducted numerous workshops on aviation safety, investigative journalism and technology topics.