Two agencies work together to develop cybersecurity experts
TO alleviate the shortage of cybersecurity experts in the country, the Electronic Transactions Development Agency is joining forces with the Thailand Information Security Association (TISA) to cultivate 500 qualified professionals this year.
Surangkana Wayuparb, chief executive of the ETDA, said the country now lacked specialists to counter various online threats.
Thailand now has only 198 certified information systems security professionals (CISSPs), which is an international standard, while other countries have many more, such as South Korea with 2,766 and Singapore with 1,579. The agency is cooperating with TISA to develop personnel with information security expert certification (ISEC), which is a local standard.
There are now 105 cybersecurity experts who have reached ISEC status and the agency expects 210 by the end of next year.
The programme aims to produce 500 CISSPs by the end of this year, jumping to 1,000 within 10 years.
Yannapon Youngyuen, president of TISA, said that under the collaboration, ISEC would focus on three areas – training, creating awareness of cybersecurity and on-the-job experience – to provide cybersecurity knowledge to support students, the public and the cybersecurity workforce.
Most cybersecurity workers in Thailand lack skills in networking, telecommunications security, IT systems operations, security risk management, procurement and maintenance.
However, cybersecurity is one component of the soft infrastructure needed to drive the “Thailand 4.0” initiative and e-commerce, Surangkana said.
