By Wilfred Golden

In an effort to strengthen cyber security in the country, Malawi Defence Force with financial support from Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) is conducting a series of Cybersecurity and National security courses.

Speaking when presiding over the opening ceremony, secretary for defence Erica Maganga, said that as a country we must combine our experience and expertise as well as our unique insights and capabilities to detect and respond to this broad and evolving threat landscape of Cybersecurity.

“Apart from building productive and enduring partnerships to defend against and respond to cyber threats, we also need to encourage good cyber hygiene and drive improved cyber practices across our nation. In today’s world we need security experts who are able to connect the dots and identity primed and calibrated measures to deter possible threats to national security.

“We are living in a cyber world where at time when insurgents and terrorists who have amorphous structures threaten government and innocent civilians, at a time we have experienced various forms of dispute ranging family chaos, power struggles in religious institution, land disputes, chieftaincy wranglels, pre and post- electoral conflicts and so fourth. This is a new reality for many Malawians out there that need to be embraced,” she said.

She also commended Malawi Defence Force through National Defence College (NDC) for facilitating the course as it will contribute to transformation that the government is committed to achieve in this country.

On his part head of computer emergency response team at MACRA Christopher Banda, said cyber security is a very big issue which will require much more effort as well as great collaboration in order to make Malawi safer, hence MACRA is coming in to support every initiative surrounding the issue.

“Cybersecurity issue is a very serious issue not only in Malawi, but also at a global level and you know challenges in cybersecurity is boarderless you don’t need to say an attack can only come in Malawi but it can came from anywhere that is why there is need for collaborations locally with all stakeholders and also international stakeholders. Now in terms of what happens on the ground more especially in Malawi, I think you might have held issues of mobile money which is a very big issue and also comes the issue of fake news just to mention a few, so as other countries are facing different attacks we can not fold arms and say we are safe but we need to collaborate and work together for the betterment of this nation,” he highlighted.

National Defence College will be offering courses bordering on technics on how to handle national defence and participants will be drawn from different security agencies like immigration, Malawi police, ministry of defence as well as national intelligence services as well academicians from outside the country.

The courses have been classified into categories ranging from executive programmes on national security which comprises a comprehensive disaster management, Cybersecurity and national security which has been sponsored by MACRA which will run for one week.