MDEC, ISACA team up to develop cyber security talent

CYBERJAYA: Malaysia Digital Economic Corp (MDEC) yesterday announced a partnership with global technology and information security association ISACA focused on improving competencies and workforce skills in cyber security in efforts to curb the shortage of cyber security professionals.

MDEC director of enabling ecosystem Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad said yesterday the partnership will provide training to 150 students from eight local universities in a pilot programme from now until December.

“This partnership is about building the talent in cyber security, because MDEC is responsible for developing the digital economy and we recognise that cyber security has a shortage of skilled professionals. We have to collaborate with the right partner so we can bring in industry-relevant modules to the universities,” he told reporters after the partnership inauguration ceremony here.

The partnership will leverage on ISACA’s training and professional development, certification, content and conference capabilities to help fuel MDEC’s digital transformation. It will ramp up the development of talent in the cyber security sector, generate more awareness for data protection and scale up partner programmes.

Malaysia is targeting to have 10,000 cyber security professionals by 2020, from about 6,300 professionals now.