IIT Madras’ Digital Skills Academy Launches New Cybersecurity Course

Indian Institute of Technology Madras Digital Skills Academy has launched a comprehensive cybersecurity course for the benefit of law enforcement, network administration by network security experts in the private and public sector and security professionals as well as the general public.

Called ‘Certified Cyber Warriors (CCW) v3.0’, this is a 120-hour course in which ‘live’ online classes will be conducted over the weekends. The highlight is that it is a hands-on course with practical sessions with over 52 learning tools and a 30-hour intensive boot camp in the IIT Madras campus.

This course aims to help critical sectors and the industry to secure themselves from data breaches, accidental sending of sensitive information and use of private emails for official communications.

Prof V Kamakoti, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras, who is also a Member, National Security Advisory Board, Government of India, has been playing a key role in improving national IT Security and Technology, especially on cybersecurity and prevention of cyber-crimes. He is the Advisor for this programme.

Launching the cybersecurity course, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, said, “There has been a worrying increase in IT threats across both public and private sector institutions. The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre has classified the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) infrastructure into multiple sectors, namely, transport, power and energy, telecom, governance, banking and financial services, insurance, and strategic public enterprises. The types of cyber-attacks in each of these sectors differ from each other. Any breach into these sectors would not only carry a heavy financial cost but also impact human lives. There is an urgent need for qualified manpower to handle information security issues in each of these sectors.”

The IIT Madras Digital Skills Academy has already partnered with the government and industry to conduct education in Cyber Security. It is collaborating with Forensic Intelligence Surveillance and Security Technologies (FISST), Chennai, which is an expert private company bringing together experts from both academia and industry.

Governments, military, corporations, hospitals, financial institutions, and private businesses process and store a great deal of confidential information on computers and transmit that data across networks. With the growing volume and sophistication of cyber-attacks, ongoing attention is required to protect sensitive business and personal information, as well as safeguard national security.

Sharing a PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) analysis that explains the threats surrounding the IT landscape, Prof K Mangala Sunder, Head, Digital Skills Academy, IIT Madras, said, “Data breach recovery costs are substantial across all industries. The Government and large enterprises need to be geared up mainly to counter the threats and improve security. Also, a lot of trained manpower is needed by these enterprises to manage attacks and uphold security, which can be done using structured ‘Academic’ programs and supply qualified specialists to industry and Government. The NASSCOM sector skill Council for IT and ITeS is also highly supportive of our initiative.”

Prof Sunder also informed that Digital Skills Academy at IIT Madras also has already started more courses on the other subjects including AI/ML, Data Science, Software engineering with programming, among others, at various levels for students and other working professionals in association with NASSCOM and in partnership with training companies incubated at IIT Madras Research Park and industry partners.

Speaking about the importance of this course, C Mohan Ram, Chief Mission Integrator and Innovator, Forensic Intelligence Surveillance and Security Technologies (FISST), said, “The CCW v3.0 will be covering basic functions of security set-up with tools and settings for prevention of attacks as well as fixing the breach as quickly as possible using internal resources. Registration for the course has commenced on 16th March 2020 and the courses will be conducted by practising Infosec experts blended with faculties from IIT-M as well as IIITDM-Kancheepuram.”

IIT Madras and FISST had signed an MOU earlier in August 2019, to launch various training series covering all segments of Cyber users to create awareness and educate about different aspects of Cybersecurity. All programs under the Skills Academy, IIT Madras, will be certification courses approved by the Centre for Continuing Education, IIT Madras and learners who complete the program will receive formal certificates from CCE (Centre for Continuing Education), IIT Madras.

Source: EDExLive