There’s a great need for cybersecurity savvy employees of late, a new Open University course is being introduced to encourage numbers of people studying to counter cyber-attacks in the UK.
The course is set for introduction this September and is initially set to be 8 weeks long, it comes after the introduction of computing to GCSEs, following the fast-paced advancement of computer knowledge and need for programmers in the current age. The course is 8 weeks in length and will result in a diploma upon completion.
According to research, the UK are far behind most countries when it comes to cyber skills and they are needed widely for intelligence services. It is a race against time for the fight against hackers presently, unfortunately with the hackers prevailing at the moment.
The problem is that many members of the population don’t even have basic understanding of cybersecurity at home and people employed in cybersecurity are so few because many aren’t even aware that careers in cybersecurity exist.
Hackers today are operating even from the comfort of their own bedrooms, they create denial of service attacks, viruses, spam emails and hold personal information of individuals to ransom. Cybercrime threats cost a staggering £238 billion yearly.
The Open University is going to be working closely with industry with the introduction of the course, as another step closer to fighting cyber-crime, the course is going to be built up over five years with an initial budget of £860m although it isn’t clear yet whether students will have to fund the course tuition themselves, or whether it will eventually span longer than the proposed 8 week period.