The Government of Spain will invest 450 million in the next three years to boost the cybersecurity sector in our country and, among the measures that will be carried out with that disbursement, it will create a cybersecurity training program that it has called the Hacker Academy, as reported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation in a note.
The Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, Carme Artigas, has reported that the funds will be allocated to three main axes: promoting the business ecosystem of the sector, strengthening the cybersecurity of citizens and SMEs and consolidate Spain as an international node in the field of cybersecurity.
To this end, the Government has announced the creation of different programs to accelerate the growth of cybersecurity startups, promote internationalization or develop national talent in this sector, and has also ensured that it will try to encourage innovation in cybersecurity through “innovative public procurement.” However, they have not given many more details about it.
The announcement of the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence In this way, it leaves more questions than answers, but in the sector they consider it positive that they continue to invest in cybersecurity although at the moment the specific articulation of the disbursement is unknown.
“That there is more investment in cybersecurity is always positive for everyone, the incidents of recent years have shown how important it is. However, It will be necessary to see how it is finally distributed, because if later only the large companies access these subsidies, it will not have helped the development of the sector not at all, “says Deepak Daswani, a cybersecurity expert.
Some doubts about the distribution of the investment shared by Rafael García, CTO of Hack By Security: “Any investment in cybersecurity is good news, but it is true that aid does not usually reach SMEs in the sector, because you have to go through a selective process, justify many things and present projects, which are evaluated and based on that evaluation receive a certain amount of money. And of course, Large companies can tackle very large projects, but small ones think about it a lot, not because of technical capacity, but because they cannot tackle that dedication financially. not knowing if they will get the money. ”
And the lack of information on the part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation about this investment only increases these doubts.
Hacker Academy
The Ministry has shared more information about the launch of the Hacker Academy, a training program in public cybersecurity and articulated through the National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) of eight weeks that will take place between May 3 and June 25, 2021 in online format, and in which up to 400 teams of between four and eight members may participate.
“Members will be trained in different capacities and technical skills. Each team will have to overcome different challenges posed with issues related to cybersecurity within a playful setting ”, the note explains. This program is aimed at people over 14 years old and will be free.
However, the announcement of this training program it also has important information gaps: the Ministry does not specify what type of qualification it will offer or whether it will be aimed at acquiring basic knowledge or technical professional skills oriented to employment. Nor has it specified the way in which interested parties can register.
From the Ministry they have explained to Xataka that they are finalizing the details of the course and can not offer, at the moment, more information about it, although they indicate that they will announce new developments soon. Likewise, they explain that, for the moment, they have only organized the 2021 edition and will study the celebration of new editions depending on the reception that this year has.
The person in charge of developing all these initiatives and programs is the Incibe, which articulate this investment through the Strategic Plan 2021-2025.