by Deriq T. Bernard
FIVE percent of organizations globally will need to fill in vacancies in crucial cybersecurity positions by 2020. This is a 1.5 million shortfall in jobs like security information officers, cybersecurity programmers and data privacy monitors. This according to a recent workforce development survey by Frost & Sullivan, the unfilled cybersecurity positions will require additional education and training.
This critical shortage in the cybersecurity workforce has resulted in overworked and understaffed security operations teams. Cyber security expert Fortinet aims to help solve this problem by setting up a training program geared specifically to increase the number of cybersecurity personnel. In partnership with the Don Bosco Technological College (DBTC), the Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA), which is part of Fortinet’s Network Security Expert (NSE) Institute, provides cybersecurity training and certification curricula for high schools, colleges and universities with the mission to prepare the future workforce with cybersecurity skills sought after by employers.
“As the country embarks on its digital transformation journey, cybercriminals are also becoming more rampant and smarter, especially because every component connected to the network is a possible entry point for an attack,” Louie Castañeda, country manager, Fortinet Philippines, said.
The DBTC in Mandaluyong City will leverage Fortinet’s comprehensive network security platform to run courses about modern network administration and security. The FNSA will provide industry-recognized Network Security Expert (NSE) training and certification opportunities to participants to help prepare students for career success in network security, obtaining both theoretical lectures and hands-on laboratory practice during the course.
“While organizations can leverage a variety of cybersecurity solutions to maintain an effective security posture, a pool of excellent IT talents is still needed to pull all cyber-defense components together. Through the FNSA program, we aim to make a difference, and we hope to partner with other educational institutions in the country to extend this program to a greater number of young talents,” Castañeda added.
DBTC is the second institution to partner with Fortinet for the FNSA program which was signed and announced only last November 27. The program is available at 150 academies in over 60 different countries.
This program will complement the current Cyber and Network Security course in DBTC. Students will learn how to design and configure secure enterprise networks with next generation firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), email, and anti-malware security technologies.
“The FNSA curriculum is aligned with our goal of gearing up future IT and cybersecurity leaders in the Philippines. With this partnership, our graduates will be equipped not only to protect organizations from cyber-attacks, but also lead in the country’s digital transformation efforts,” Fr. Vitaliano Dimaranan, SDB, president of Don Bosco Technical College of Mandaluyong, said.
Proponents of the FNSA program said that the program will boost the Philippines’ long-term cyber defense capabilities against increasingly sophisticated threats.
