The world is changing at a rapid pace beyond the pace of any generation before. Such an opening sentence has probably been applicable to each of the last several generations since the industrial revolution and inventions before then like the Gutenberg press made the technological advances that now occur every half-a-decade imaginable. We are now, by the by, largely acclimatized to the mega speeds at which technology now changes and most people are probably aware that the current sheen of modern technologies like tablets and android phones will quickly be bypassed by whatever comes next from them techie guys at Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google etc etc – the new powerhouses of the digital world.
Written By William Barns-Graham
With head in the cloud thinking becoming actuality almost instantaneously (and cloud technology has already transformed the business world), there are downsides to the technocratic nature of modern business, politics and crime. For every genius innovator whose invention makes our lives that bit simpler, there are an abundance of genius disrupters whose aim is to play upon the flaws that come about from such rapid technological progress, using loopholes to commit certain crimes or pranks.
Following the recent alleged hacking of US government information by apparent Chinese spies, cybercrime has become the new espionage, the new means to robbery and increasingly the most appealing form of protest (trolls et al). This has lead President Obama to describe cybercrime as the one of “the most serious economic and national security challenges we face” – it is no thing of the future, being able to withstand the threat of cybercrime has become a matter of national interest to businesses, supreme importance to businesses and is also pretty important for most normal people today. It is through our internet personas and clouds that we are now most vulnerable to attack, via our bank card details or even more personal data.
And yet, are we savvy enough in knowing how to protect ourselves? Are technically slow politicians and CEOs adept for facing these serious problems? Are our technically literate children being taught the values of internet protectionism and intelligence defence enough in order to be able to withstand these threats as the leaders and businessmen of the future? According to America’s most prestigious institutes of higher learning, the answer is overwhelmingly no.
A study entitled “One Leader at a Time: The Failure to Educate Future Leaders for an Age of Persistent Cyber Threat” was published by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy and the conclusions of the study were that not enough is being done to prepare children for the future. Of course there is little that can be done about very intelligent hackers being a step ahead of most internet users and therefore having a significant head-start in their conniving plans; what can and must be instilled into most young people is an approach to the internet whereby people are savvy enough to safeguard themselves from most threats. In terms of future business and political figures, a desire to stay a step ahead of cyber-enemies is key, and this is as much to do with employing and trusting the right people to be in administer vital online information.
“Ultimately, achieving cybersecurity is more than a technical problem,” said Francesca Spidalieri, a Pell Center Fellow, in a statement. “It is an operational problem, and only the leaders of institutions have the authority necessary to implement the fundamental, overarching policies that can begin to address some of these threats.”
Having surveyed 70 top-ranked master’s degree-level programs in business, law and international relations among others, the survey concluded that none of these programmes is preparing future high-flyers to be able to come up with these “fundamental, overarching policies”.
“Not one of the programs reviewed — not one — includes any aspect of cybersecurity among their core requirements,” the survey summary states.
Only 10 out of the 70 programmes scored three or higher on a four-point scale that assessed “the exposure their students receive to cybersecurity issues”. Clearly the programmes that are educating America’s future leaders are not doing enough to give such important practical knowledge for what is already a fundamental aspect of politics, business and even everyday life in the modern world.
Who knows what kind of form cybercrime will take in the future, and it is for this reason that people must become educated in being able to adapt quickly to further technological advances and become rapidly savvy to the threats that such advances bring. It is not so much learning about cybersecurity today that counts, its learning an approach that will allow future means to cybersecurity to be learned quickly that should be instilled in today’s future leaders.
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