A leading cybersecurity advocacy group -West Africa ICT Action Network hosted the 1st Annual Youth Cybersecurity Symposium at the Bluescrest University in Monrovia.
The growing need for IT security professionals is widely acknowledged worldwide to help mitigate this shortage of skills, many countries in Liberia need to encourage the youth in school and for this reason, WAICTAnet has embarked on this annual symposium.
The symposium targets students, university graduates or even non-ICT professionals with a clear aim to find new and young cyber talents and encourage young people to pursue a career in cyber security.
As part of the month-long celebration of the annual cybersecurity Awareness month, the month of October is dedicated to creating resources and communications for organizations to talk about staying safe online.
This month will focus on the “people.” There is a strong need to collaboration between government, private industry non state-actors to raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal data from digital forms of crime.
The event gathered experience industry practitioners and advocates to share real life solutions and help students protect themselves online as threats to technology and confidential data become more common place.
This year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month has an overarching theme: “See Yourself in Cyber” which demonstrates that while cybersecurity may seem like a complex subject, ultimately, it’s really all about people.
Speaking at the symposium, Executive Director of WAICTANet, Peterking Quaye, highlighted the importance of passage of the cybercrime Act for Liberia and also admonish stakeholders to ensure the National Cybersecurity Strategy is passed. “We see these instruments as very vital tools the safety of citizens online,” he said.
Topics at the symposium included basic cyber hygiene practices: update your software, think before you click, have good strong passwords or a password keeper, and enable multi-factor authentication (meaning you need “More Than A Password!”) on all your sensitive accounts.
The West Africa ICT Action Network (Liberia) is a Think-Thank in the area of ICT, we offer technical contribution to the Liberia internet governance forum research and debates on internet development, telecommunication, AI, IOT, policies support that supports meaningful access, affordable, secure and resilience internet in Liberia and the sub-region of West Africa.
The network activities include academic research, engagements and discussions on the state of the internet, internet policies and regulatory efforts in Liberia from a global perspective.
