Namibian ICT providers Complete Enterprise Solutions (CES) and Salt Essential IT will help develop and promote the cybersecurity training offered by the Faculty of Computing and Informatics at Namibia University of Science & Technology (NUST) and Check Point SecureAcademy.

According to CheckPoint Research, in Namibia alone an organisation experienced an average of 1 382 attacks each week last year. Globally, this figure is 930, meaning Namibian businesses are dealing with nearly 49% more cyberthreats.

The collaboration will see the university’s faculty members complete the Check Point Certified Security Administrator training, enabling them to teach a range of cybersecurity courses to NUST’s students, starting this year.

CES, one of Check Point Software Technologies’ 4 Star partners, and Salt, a 2 Star Partner, will help to develop and promote the Check Point SecureAcademy training alongside NUST.

Added to this, CES and Salt, working through NUST’s Cooperative Education Unit, will help facilitate industry-relevant internship placement and secure workplace sites enabling Work Integrated Learning for students who have graduated from the collaboration’s training programme.

To date, three of the university’s lecturers have successfully completed the training, with more staff signed up to take the course.

Dr Mercy Chitauro, Cyber Security Program Coordinator at NUST, said, “Through this collaboration, we are strengthening Africa’s cybersecurity landscape, as our lecturers will be passing the crucial cyber skills they have learned onto the next generation of professionals.”

PJ Kotze, General Manager of CES, added, “Achieving Check Point SecureAcademy status within Namibia is an important step forward in developing a new talent pool of qualified security professionals and a sustainable breeding ground for this talent pool in the country.”

Sonja Coetzer, Managing Director at Salt, continued: “Education initiatives like this are helping build stronger, more secure environments for businesses to compete in a sustainable digital economy, which is so important in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

This collaboration will deepen the reach of cybersecurity education already being provided by the Check Point Cyber Security Jump Start programme.

The cyber security firm said that through this programme, learners can access free online courses from anywhere in the world, gaining recognised certification upon completion. Currently, over 20 000 students and security professionals across Africa have completed these courses.

“This new collaboration further demonstrates our ongoing commitment to make cybersecurity education accessible to all,” says Pankaj Bhula, Regional Director for Africa at Check Point Software Technologies. “With the current shortage of cyber skills, it is essential that we attract more professionals to the field who we can then prepare to take on future cyber threats across Africa.”