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As part of the awareness creation month on the adverse effect of cybersecurity, the United States Foreign Press Center has organized a one month long training for some selected Journalists across the world on cybersecurity.

Journalists were selected from various media houses across the world to partake in the virtual training to help equip them in knowledge about the relevance of cybersecurity and the dangers associated with cyber as the world continues grow digitally in the cyber world.

Speaking to the media, the U.S Foreign press centre indicated that the purpose of the training is to give Journalists from around the world front row access to high-level U.S. government and private sector cybersecurity experts and share how the U.S. is working collaboratively with businesses, interagency partners, international allies, and stakeholders to strengthen cybersecurity demands of the 21st century.

Cyber Director, Chris Inglis and Principal Deputy National Cyber Director Kemba Walden who were the first to brief us on our Virtual Reporting Tour, on the topic 'A Shared Responsibility: Prioritizing Public-Private Partnerships in Cybersecurity' explained that there’s a very strong analogy to be had in cyberspace.

"We care about cyber, or perhaps the more technical term, digital infrastructure – the internet – we care about that not for its own sake; we care about it because it delivers functions that we care about as individuals, as businesses, as societies.

They added that many businesses plan and deliver there business outcomes across the internet, and societies also increasingly deliver critical functions using the internet, what you might call digital infrastructure, what we sometimes call cyber. So cyber is important not for its own sake, but because of what it does for us.

They maintained that If we are to put cyber in its proper place then we need to subordinate cyber to those functions, not elevate it into some lofty position for its own sake.

Effects of cybersecurity can be very damning. Research has shown that they can result in the theft of valuable, sensitive data like medical records.
They can also disrupt phone and computer networks or paralyze systems, making data unavailable.

It's not an exaggeration to say that cyber threats may affect the functioning of life as we know it. The threats are growing more serious, too.